


Secrets

by That_Kind_Of_Crazy



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-17
Updated: 2013-07-01
Packaged: 2017-12-15 07:35:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 37,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/846967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/That_Kind_Of_Crazy/pseuds/That_Kind_Of_Crazy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set just after Season 2, things start getting back to normal when Jackson meets his Mate, and that's when things get a little out of hand. Secrets are kept, accusations are tossed and common enemies are made. Is this all going to be too much for Jackson or can he hold onto the only thing that matters to him now?  Rated M for language, sexy times, and drug use. There's tons of OC characters btw</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Stiles! Stiles!”

Jackson’s voice came from behind him and Stiles internally sighed and hunched his shoulders forward. He did not, repeat, did not feel like talking to Jackson. After all that had happened between them, like Jackson turning into a giant lizard and trying to kill everybody, Stiles didn't really feel comfortable around the guy. But a few weeks ago they had successfully ridden Jackson of his Master. Which meant that Jackson was Pack, as Stiles was, and that Stiles was going to have to suck it up and talk to the ex-Lizard Jock Douche combo.

“Hey, Jackson what’s up?” Stiles asked as Jackson caught up with him in the hallway.  
“Hey Stiles listen,” The taller teen started, Stile noticed the bags under Jackson’s eyes and his bloodshot eyes, Damn Jackson must be having a rough time. “I know that we have a pack meeting today but my parents are making me go talk to a shrink after school. I’m trying to get out of it but if I’m not at Derek’s be sure to tell him that’s why.”  
They stopped at Stiles’ locker and Jackson leaned heavily on the wall as Stiles asked, “Why are your parents making you see a shrink?”

Jackson took a deep breath before answering with an un-amused look, “Because they think that I’m keeping secrets and that I’m probably on drugs.”  
Stiles whistled, wow his dad thought Stiles was pretty shady with all that had gone on but he had only tried to talk to him a few times. Stiles didn't like therapists, not since one had diagnosed him with ADD. Stiles felt for Jackson, he had just gotten out of the hospital a few days ago and this was only his first day back to school in two weeks.  
Stiles remembered how Jackson AKA the Kanima and his Master had finally been tracked down. Derek, Scott, and the rest of the rag tag pack had killed the Kanima’s Master freeing Jackson from the bond, but Derek had roughed him up badly in the fight. 

Stiles put his arm on the guy’s shoulder, “It’s cool, Derek probably won’t even mind.” Lie. “Hey when you’re done if you want to come over to my house Scott and I were going to order pizza and play Call of Duty.” Truth. “You look like you could use a little down time.” Truth. Stiles hoped two truths would make up for the lie he told.  
Jackson smirked at the lie but he was gracious for the invite, he didn't have many friends, and Danny was chasing after some guy so he hadn’t been around lately. “Yeah, sure thanks Stiles.”

Stiles opened his mouth to reply, but as if on some sick cue from the Powers that Be, who secretly wanted to destroy Stiles’ life, he was cut short and he slammed his locker door shut and the two boys rounded the corner filing into Chemistry. Jackson suddenly stopped a foot into the classroom, and as usual Stiles wasn’t watching where he was going, so yeah of course Stiles walked right into Jackson’s back, and thankfully the guy was so distracted with something else he didn’t even strangle Stiles.  
“What the hell man?” Stiles asked as Jackson turned around sniffing the air.

“Do you smell that?” Jackson asked looking around the room trying to identify where the mysterious, delicious smell was coming from.  
Stiles dragged Jackson to two empty seats and sat down looking the other teen, “Dude you’re the werewolf not me, whatever you’re smelling I can’t.”  
Stiles watched as Jackson stuck his nose in the air and inhaled deeply, the teen wolf was seriously acting weird. Stiles hit Jackson on the arm, “Calm down you’re going to make a scene.”

Jackson stopped sniffing but he scanned the classroom instead, “No, I think it’s someone’s scent.” He said tracking the smell down to one girl sitting in the other side of the classroom in the back and Jackson’s heart skipped a few beats when he first looked at her. “Holy shit.” He whispered.  
The girl had shoulder length hair slightly kinked with natural curls, it was a dark red color; the red only catching when the light hit it just right. Jackson thought she must have the greenest eyes in the world, because goddamn they were so green and he wanted to stare at them forever. Jackson’s eyes slid down the girl’s body while she mounted a stool and set her books down. Her body was full of sensual curves. But the way she held herself, Jackson thought of Lydia and then shook his head. Whoever she was, she was the very opposite of Lydia. The girl wasn’t extravagantly beautiful like Lydia or Allison but she was still just as attractive. Jackson growled low and felt Stiles grab his arm cautiously.

“Jackson are you okay?” Stiles asked grabbing his arm. Jackson jerked away from Stiles’ touch and looked down at the table in front of him.  
“Who is that girl? I’ve never seen her before.” Jackson asked opening his text book trying to look in any direction but at her. Stiles looked and shook his head, “That’s Raleigh McKenna, she just transferred here about a week ago while you were in the hospital. She’s pretty nice and smart too, she gave me and Scott copies of some notes we missed, you know having to run around saving your ass.”

Jackson rolled his eyes at Stiles’ comment and glanced back at the girl, no Raleigh, right as Mr. Harris walked in the room and silenced the classroom. Harris made Stiles read two full pages of their textbook before he even started teaching which would have made Jackson smile, but he had picked a picture in his book and focused on it.  
Harris put the names of polyatomic negative ions on the board and Jackson swore under his breath when he heard both his name as well as Stiles’ called to the front board. There were five problems and two students already at the board, Mr. Harris looked at Raleigh and smiled making Jackson’s grip on his chalk to tighten as the girl made her way over to him.

Jackson stared at the chalkboard hard like if he looked away he might explode, he stared at his problem; only he hadn’t been paying attention and now he had no idea what he was supposed to do with the word Borate. His body tensed up when Raleigh stood beside him writing slowly on the chalk board.  
“Borate is BO3 3neg.” Raleigh whispered to him.

“What?” Jackson asked his senses going crazy just from being next to the girl and he made the biggest mistake, he cocked his head to the side and looked at her right as Raleigh looked in his direction with a smile, she whispered again, “BO three at the bottom, three at the top and a negative sign.”  
Jackson wrote the formula down quickly as Raleigh returned to her seat and Jackson did the same. Only this time Jackson opened his textbook and shoved his face into it. He didn’t want to think about the girl or look at her something was very wrong here and Jackson wanted to know why she smelled so good, and why Raleigh made him feel like a complete idiot.

Suddenly there was a voice in Jackson’s head, a voice he recognized as his wolf. Mate. What?!? Mate. Claim her.  
Jackson took a deep breath he felt like he was going to suffocate like there wasn’t enough air to breath. How was this possible, the first time his wolf decided to speak to him it was to tell him that some girl was his Mate? Maybe he could just ignore her, or switch classes. Jackson’s palms started sweating and thank God because Stiles had just gotten back from the board and he seemed to notice.

“Dude what the hell? You look like you’re about to throw up.” He heard Stiles say in a low voice. Jackson looked at Stiles with his jaw clenched and the smaller teen drew back, “Your eyes, look down.”  
Jackson lowered his head but spoke where Stiles could hear him, “There’s something about that girl. Something weird.” And that seemed enough for Stiles who saved his ass by telling Mr. Harris that Jackson, who had just gotten out of the hospital, was not feeling good and should be allowed to leave. Thankfully Mr. Harris allowed both boys to be excused and Jackson gathered his things quickly and was out the door in a matter of seconds with Stilinski right behind him. The two never stopped until they were inside the empty boys locker room and Jackson had his face in the sink, reveling in the cold water.

“Jackson are you okay?” Stiles asked nervously from behind him, “Because if you say no then I’ll be forced to call Derek to come and save me ‘cause he’d be real pissed off if you rip me to shreds in the locker room and-”  
“Stiles!” The overactive boy shut up immediately, “I’m fine now.” He said wiping the cold water from his face, “What do you know about that girl, Raleigh?”  
Stiles shrugged sitting down on one of the benches, “Not much really, I’ve only talked to her like twice, and she was real nice to me. I have next period with her though.”

Jackson growled low in his throat and he narrowed his eyes at a very concerned Stiles, “You have to find everything you can about her! My, my wolf said something to me…”  
“Oh, so you’re not a lizard anymore?” Stiles asked nonchalantly receiving a dark look, “Sorry couldn’t help it. What did your wolf say?”  
Jackson wiped at his face with a towel, “He said Mate. What does that mean?”

Stiles grinned and jumped off the bench, “Oh, man this is so cool, you found your Mate. Okay so your Mate is supposed to be like the one, like with Scott and Allison, and me and Derek. We’re Mates.”  
“Yeah but I don’t even know that girl, how am I supposed to-”  
“Relax Jackson, I’ve got this. I’ll scope her out for you and give you the details.” Stiles says grabbing his back pack as the bell rang, “You just stay calm and try not to think about her okay?”

Jackson shrugged getting his own books, “Yeah easy for you to say.”

The two boys went their separate ways, Stiles to History and Jackson to English, where he sat alone the entire class period staring at his blank notebook. This was humiliating. He’s Jackson fucking Whittemore, he doesn’t get sweaty palms when he sees a pretty girl. He’s the guy who charms all of the pretty girls with his fake smiles and his incredibly good looks and money! Come on, Jackson had even dated Lydia Martin and survived; Jackson wasn’t a scared little boy. He had survived being a Kanima and controlled by a douche bag   
Master who had forced him to kill people and still wasn’t as freaked out as he was when he looked at… Raleigh.

What the hell kind of name was that anyway? Wasn’t Raleigh a city in North Carolina or something? Jackson’s heart started beating twice as fast when he remembered how she had given him a smile. No, focus, don’t freak out. This is nothing, she’s nothing. Just breathe! Jackson inhaled a deep calming breath. Jackson started to get angry, this was ridiculous, he was actually getting worked up over a girl.

Mate. No. Mate. No fucking way now shut the fuck up you stupid wolf. Ours. What? She is Ours! No, she most definitely is not ours! You’ll see. No, no there will be no seeing, just shut up!

Jackson’s wolf decided to get with the program and shut up, making the boy sigh a sigh of sweet sweet relief. He felt his heart slow down and the nervous panic that felt like he was free falling without a parachute finally went away and Jackson actually started listening to his teacher talk about Shakespeare or something.  
Thankfully the rest of the class period was peaceful and when the bell rang Jackson was standing by Stiles’ locker desperately waiting for the scrawny spazoid to bring him good news. “Jackson!” Stiles said as he strode to the locker with a grin on his face, Jackson suppressed the urge to slam him into the lockers as Stiles started putting his books away babbling.

“Okay so Raleigh is from a tiny town in Kansas. She just got legally emancipated from her parents and moved out here because she’s always liked California. She has an apartment just off campus, her favorite color is purple, she likes classic rock and sad depressing music, she drives a hunter green Cherokee and she wants to be a writer when she grows up.” Stiles took a breath, “She’s also super nice, like I already said and you’d better not scare her Jackson.”  
Jackson rolled his eyes, “Right now she scares me more than I’d scare her.” He froze when Stiles looked at him abruptly, “Oh, shit I just said that out loud didn’t I?”

Stiles slapped him on the back reassuringly, “Relax dude, I’m sure if you take it easy and don’t act like a total douche bag she’ll like you.” Jackson looked at the boy dangerously, “Not that you do act like a douche bag at all or ever, it’s just you know girls like nice and Raleigh doesn’t really strike me as a Lydia girl. You know sixty percent evil and what not, not that I’m comparing Raleigh to Lydia because that would be ridiculous and they’re both very different people and you know what? You should so talk to Derek about the whole Mate thing and maybe you can figure out how to not freak out every time you see her, or smell her, or you know think about her.”

Jackson backed Stiles into his open locker and spoke in a scarily low tone, “Fine, I’ll talk to Derek but you don’t tell a soul about this or what I just said. Got it?”  
Stiles smiled, “Don’t worry dude I won’t say a word.” He said as Jackson backed away from him looking at his phone. His parents had texted him to remind Jackson of his appointment. “Hey you still want to come over after you get done with… that thing that you have to do? If you needed the down time before you definitely need it now.”  
Jackson nodded slipping his phone back in his pocket, “Yeah sure. And tell Derek I’m sorry about missing the meeting.” He said walking away from Stiles shouldering his back pack. 

When he opened the school’s doors Jackson caught Raleigh’s scent and he watched as she got in her Jeep and drove right past him with some kind of music blaring out the windows Jackson had never heard before. He took a deep breath and got in his Porsche, all he had to do was survive one hour of torture and then he was free. Jackson gritted his teeth and drove away, barely paying attention to where he was driving until he parked at the shrink’s office. He slunk in the office tentatively and sat down in one of the many uncomfortable chairs.

Jackson’s eyes caught the television, the Discovery channel was on and wouldn’t you know it they were talking about wolves. He sighed heavily averting his eyes to the floor but he could still hear the sound, “Wolves are widely known for mating for life. When a wolf finds that one other wolf that they want to be with they stay together until the death. It’s quite beaut-”

“Mr. Whittemore?”

Jackson almost jumped out of his chair and looked at the small woman in a business suit who was smiling at him, “Hello, sorry if I scared you, I’m Elise Hawthorne, I’m your therapist.”  
Jackson smiled his, I don’t give a shit smile, “Wonderful.”

Hawthorne talked all the way to her office, “I’ve been told by your parents that they think you’ve been having some problems.” She smiled at Jackson and offered him a seat as she closed the door, “Now I know you must be feeling uncomfortable about all of this but I’m not here to judge you or tell you that whatever you may be feeling is uncalled for.” She smiled at him again when she sat down and picked up a notebook. “I’m just here to listen to what you have to say.”

Jackson settled himself into his chair and proceeded to stare back at Hawthorne in complete silence. She wanted him to talk? She was going to have to beat the words out of him, and that was as literal as possible. Hawthorne got the hint and looked down at some papers, “Your parents tell me that you were adopted at birth after your biological parent’s death, do you have anything you’d like to say about that?” She asked completely innocently. Jackson stayed quiet.

“Okay, uhm, I read that you were attacked in the woods by a wild animal and the two boys who found you, you had filed a restraining order against them but while you were in the hospital you had it dropped. Are they your friends now?”  
Jackson sighed, “Friend is a strong word, they’re more like… acquaintances.”

Hawthorne seemed pleased he had finally spoken and he could tell she was trying to tread the water carefully, “So do you have anyone that you would classify as a friend?”  
He smirked a little before answering, “Danny, Danny Mahealani. I’ve known him for a few years. He’s a good guy.”  
“Ah, okay, so do you have a girl in your life? Or a boy?” Hawthorne’s face flushed, “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I- I just meant like a special someone, regardless of sex.”  
Jackson shifted in his seat, “No, I had been dating this one girl for a while but I broke it off.”

The therapist inclined her head, “Did you not like her anymore?”  
“Lydia was… different. I guess at first I dated her for the status you know and because she pushed me to be the best. But after a while it just got annoying and I…” Jackson paused feeling like an idiot for how he had treated Lydia and he realized maybe he was a douche bag, but at least he had a reason for it. Not that anyone would ever find out, especially not his therapist. “I kinda just realized that we had grown apart, but we still hang out stuff so it’s not like it was a bad break up or anything. I still care for her.”

Hawthorne smiled legitimately, “Well, that’s good. Have you thought about finding anyone else? Not that you should, I’m just wondering where you are right now.”  
Jackson shrugged, “Not really.” As Hawthorne prattled on about feelings and freaking unicorns Jackson pretended to listen and waited for his hour to run out. God, could this be any more annoying?

When Jackson was finally released with a reminder of their meeting in seven days he made a mad dash for his Porsche. There was no way Hawthorne could get him in there, nope, no way. He was safe. He looked at his phone realizing that Stiles had texted him about ten minutes ago, saying that he and Scott were back from the meeting. Jackson sucked in a deep breath and drove, way too fast, over to Stilinski’s house. The Sheriff answered the door looking a little bit surprised but the older man stepped aside and welcomed him in, “The guys are upstairs with pizza and Mountain Dew so watch out.”

Jackson wondered while he was climbing the Stilinski’s stairs if he really should watch out. Stiles was a half crazed ADD, and sugar and killing people online probably didn’t make him any calmer. He hoped Scott would act as a buffer. McCall had actually started treating him decently since the incident in the woods with Matt and Gerard. Jackson knew he didn’t deserve the kindness but he appreciated little things. When he walked through Stiles’ door both boys were yelling and screaming at the TV.

“Hey, Jackson glad you could make it!” Scott said pausing the game, “Wanna kill some zombies?” He asked handing Jackson a spare controller. Jackson planted himself on the end of Stiles’ bed and after they restarted the game all three boys were rapidly hitting buttons and yelling at each other for getting killed. Two hours later the pizza was gone as was the Mountain Dew and they were currently zombie free.

“If this didn’t recharge your batteries I don’t know what will.” Stiles said with his mouth full of the last slice of pizza.  
Jackson shrugged, “Yeah it did kinda feel good to just not worry about anything for a while.”  
“Just remember Jackson, we’re all a part of the Pack now.” Scott said, “If there’s ever anything you need we’re all going to be there for you.”

Jackson stood up stretching his back, “Way to go sounding like a girl, McCall.” He said with a grin, “But thanks, I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”  
Jackson left Stiles’ house feeling a little lighter. He felt more like himself, I’m Jackson fucking Whittemore, I can do anything. He smiled a little to himself as he pulled into his drive way thankful to find that his parents weren’t home. Jackson went inside stripped off his clothes and laid down on his bed. He listened to all the noise his now wolfy, and not lizard, hearing could pick up before falling into a deep sleep.

Yeah he was Jackson Whittemore and nothing fazed him, not werewolves, not hunters, and especially not girls named Raleigh. Of course, he had been wrong before.


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning Jackson arrived at school determined that he would ignore Raleigh. He wanted to find her and tell her that he had no interest in her whatsoever, Raleigh would probably think he was a lunatic, but at least he would feel better. Despite whatever his wolf thought there was no way Jackson was just going to accept that Raleigh was his Mate. This was all ridiculousness and it was about to stop.

He sniffed her out in the hallway and watched her open her locker from about twenty feet away. He could smell her perfectly, Jackson couldn’t even describe it with words but her scent reminded him of something that he just couldn’t remember. He felt fine, no racing heartbeat or wolf yelling at him so Jackson did what he did best; something he would regret.

Jackson walked right up to Raleigh while she stood at her locker sifting through her books, he opened his mouth to speak to her but when she looked at him, it made him feel like he couldn’t breathe. But her, with her hair that accented her face and those big green innocent eyes and that body that just had to be made for sex dressed up in jeans and a tank top. She looked at him and smiled politely and Jackson froze.

After a second when Raleigh realized that Jackson was staring at her with his mouth open her smile fell away, “Can I… help you?” She asked nervously with a raised eye brow.

Jackson moved his mouth willing word to come out but none would. Oh, come on she’s not even the hottest girl I’ve ever seen and I can’t even speak to her?! Remember your words idiot! Say something! “I’m Jackson.” Thank God, it was a miracle. He made the words work!

Raleigh smiled, but Jackson missed the embarrassment of it, and nodded, “Yeah I know who you are. You’re in my Chem. Class, Stiles talked about you yesterday.”

“He did?” Jackson asked in a whisper, panic hit him in the chest, what the hell had Stilinski said to her? With all his babbling it’s amazing she didn’t know his entire life story.

“Yeah, he was talking about you and few other of his friends, Scott and Allison, and Lydia I think.” She said still staring up at him. With those goddamn green eyes! Jackson felt his chest seize up and he knew he had to get out of there, but Raleigh beat him to the punch by slamming her locker door shut, “Well, bye.” She said walking away from him in complete disinterest, or maybe it was because he was acting like a weirdo. Jackson overheard her whisper creeper under her breath. Yeah, it was because he was acting like a freak. Great job Whittemore.

Jackson watched in utter defeat as she walked away from him. That had never happened to him before, girls he talked to didn’t just walk away. They fell over themselves to get a wayward glance from him. Jackson made a fist and hit the lockers next to him before stalking off to find Stiles. There was still a few minutes before the first bell rang and Stiles was sitting in his jeep telling Derek over the phone how much he loved-

Ew, Jackson felt like puking. He knew that Derek and Stiles were together and happy and shit, but Jackson did not want to overhear their private conversations. Stiles seemed to agree and hung up quickly on Derek, “Hey Jackson, what’s up?”  
Jackson smirked angrily putting his hand on the jeep’s open door, “I can’t even fucking talk to her!”

“Oooh,” Stiles said, “Did you even try?”  
Jackson gripped the door under his hand, “Yes, I tried I had my mouth hanging open for thirty seconds and the only thing I got out was ‘I’m Jackson’ which she apparently already knew.” He said looking up at Stiles squirming nervously in his seat.

“Okay before you go crazy just focus on calming down. And I didn’t really talk about you I just mentioned your name. A-and I might have invited her to sit with us during lunch…”

Jackson’s eyes went wide, “What? Stiles if I can barely say two words to her how am I supposed to sit close to her?”  
Stiles panicked scrambling out of his jeep as the first bell rang and half ran into the school, “I don’t know! Maybe you should skip lunch, and seriously, after school you should talk to Derek. I mean he never had problems talking to me, well he never had problems hitting me and throwing me up against walls either. He can probably help you.”

Jackson growled low when the two boys walked into the hallway and turned a sharp corner, and wouldn’t you know it Raleigh slammed right into his chest, and Jackson was the one who recoiled instead of the smaller shorter girl. He heard her gasp loudly and take two step back, her mouth open in shock, “Oh, my God I am so sorry.” She said to Jackson but he had already closed his eyes and nodded at her. He heard Stiles chime in.

“Oh, don’t worry about it Raleigh, Jackson is a man made completely of muscle.” Stiles patted Jackson’s chest, “See, can’t hurt him.”

Raleigh smiled at Stiles, “Hey, I got the rest of those notes for you for Mr. Harris’ class.” She said reaching into her messenger bag pulling out a few papers.

Stiles threw his hands up and hugged the girl, trying to get her attention off Jackson, who was standing there with his now open eyes. “Thank you so much, you have no idea how much this means to me!” He pulled away from her, “You’re sitting with us at lunch right?”

Raleigh nodded, “Yeah absolutely.”

Stiles smiled and put his arm on Jackson’s shoulder, which really was a little too high for him, “Well, see you then.”  
Raleigh nodded awkwardly looking at the two boys before she walked past them to her first period. Stiles watched as Jackson followed her with his eyes and whined, he actually fucking whined like a dog as Raleigh left. As if realizing what he did Jackson turned and gave Stiles a hard look. “Don’t ever touch her again.”

Stiles took a step back in surrender, “Oh, yeah totally sorry I didn’t mean-” But Jackson had already walked away with slumped shoulders that spelled defeat. Stiles grabbed his phone and sent Derek a text message making him aware of the situation. Other than that Stiles kept his word and told no one about Raleigh. 

When lunch came around Scott, Allison, Lydia and Danny were sitting at their usual table while Stiles scanned the cafeteria for Raleigh.

“What’s her name again?” Lydia asked poking at her lunch.

“Her name is Raleigh and she’s nice, so everyone else be nice to her.” Stiles said glaring at the girl he used to be in love with.

“Isn’t that a city in North Carolina?” Allison asked snaking her arm around Scott’s. Fortunately her parents had stopped working at the school a week ago. So the two were once again allowed to be disgustingly cute together.  
Scott spoke before Stiles could, “Yes it is, but she just moved here and she really helped us out in Mr. Harris’ class.”

“The least we could do is let her sit with us.” Stiles added as he spotted Raleigh walking through the giant room. He stood up and waved her over to the table. “Everyone this is Raleigh McKenna.”  
Raleigh gave a weak smile, “Hey everyone.”  
Allison leaned forward where she could see the girl, “Ignore Stiles, we all do. I’m Allison.”  
Lydia smiled politely, “I’m Lydia Martin.”  
Danny reached his hand over the table, “And I’m Danny.”

Stiles winced while the two shook hands remembering what Jackson had said but before he could say anything Allison took over.  
“So where are you from Raleigh?”

“I’m from this tiny little town in Kansas called Parker.” Raleigh answered.  
Both Scott and Lydia looked at Raleigh like she had three heads and Stiles couldn’t figure out why.  
“So why did you move all the way out to California?” Lydia asked now completely in tuned to the conversation. 

“Uh, well.” Raleigh started, “I just got emancipated from my parents and I’ve always thought California was cool so I decided why not huh?”

Lydia nodded with a smile, “Wow, you’re emancipated from your parents?”  
The girl nodded, “Yeah.”

Stiles watched as Lydia and Scott exchanged strange looks, “Yeah, she’s even got her own apartment right Raleigh?” Stiles asked trying to get over the weirdness that was the werewolves at the table.  
Raleigh smiled and nodded once again, “Yes I do, the perk of not having parents.”

Ten minutes later the bell rang ending lunch and Raleigh got up saying her goodbyes and Scott grabbed Stiles’ arm as everyone else left the table except for Lydia, “Oww, what the hell Scott?”  
Scott looked at him hard, “She was lying.”  
“What?”

Lydia answered, “When she said she was from Kansas she lied, and lied about being emancipated from her parents. We both heard it.”  
Stiles looked at Scott who nodded, “What? I-I don’t think she would lie about something like that.”  
“But she did.” Scott said finally letting of his arm.

“But-” Jackson’s thinks that she’s his Mate and she really is nice and oh mother of God how can this be possible? Stiles mentally contained himself, but really just barely.

“There’s no buts, what if she’s a hunter?” Lydia asked smacking him upside the head.

“I don’t think the Argents would hire a teenage girl to get close to us.”

“Dude, they were working at the school less than a week ago. Don’t you think that it’s weird them leaving and her just showing up? I mean I know we have a kinda truce with them but seriously.” Scott said his voice a little panicky.

“Yeah, but you’re the one who talked to her first in Chemistry class remember? She never even looked at you before you asked her for those notes. There’s no way she’s a spy.” Stiles said trying to defend Jackson’s Mate.

“How do you know that?” Lydia said standing up, “We have to tell Derek.”  
Scott added, “She’s right we do.”

Stiles threw his hands up again, “Okay fine but, until we figure out what’s going on let’s just all stay away from her.” Stiles was freaking out, was Raleigh actually a hunter and Jackson’s Mate? Well Scott did fall for Allison Argent. They could all quite possible be in serious trouble.

After that extremely awkward lunch Raleigh grabbed her workout bag from her locker and made her way to the guy’s locker room. Coach Finstock had told her that no one would be in it after lunch and that she could use it to work out. Raleigh knocked on the door just to make sure that there was no one inside and pushed open the door sticking her head inside, “Hello? Any naked guys in here?” 

No one answered so Raleigh walked inside. She set her bag down on a bench and slipped her combat boots and jeans off replacing them with a pair of shorts and tennis shoes. Raleigh picked up her boxing gloves and walked over to the punching bag. She worked it over for a few minutes as a warm up and when she turned around to get a drink of water Jackson was standing a few feet behind her. Raleigh let out a startled gasp and clutched her chest as Jackson took a step back.  
“Oh, my God you just scared the shit out of me dude!”

Jackson could say the same, he’d ducked out of lunch and come to the locker room to be alone when he’d heard her voice just after the bell rang, ‘Hello? Any naked guys in here?’ Jackson had panicked taking himself and his back pack into the showers hiding from her. After a few minutes of praying that she would leave he heard her take to the punching bag. He’d looked tentatively out from the showers to see her in a pair of short shorts beating the ever loving shit out of the innocent bag.

“What are you doing in here? This is the male locker room.” That was pretty much the only thing he could say after she’d finally seen him behind her.

“I have a free period and Coach Finstock said I could use the workout equipment.” She replied, wiping at the sweat on her face,   
“He said there wouldn’t be anyone in here.”

Jackson shrugged, “I just came to skip Calculus.” Good save. He told himself and tried his best to look his usual nonchalant self.

“Yeah, I hate math.” Raleigh quipped nervously not knowing what to do, “Uhh, you know what it’s okay, I’ll just leave.” She said taking a step.

“No!” Jackson said quickly, “I mean no, you were doing pretty good on the bag.” He spoke not knowing if his efforts to smile were working. Jackson was a little pleased with himself, his heart wasn’t racing and he wasn’t freaking out and he was actually having a conversation with Raleigh.

The girl scoffed looking at the bag, “Yeah, well I was like the second best fighter in my class.”  
“What class?”  
She shrugged, “It was kinda a mix up of a lot of different things. Karate, boxing, jujitsu, kung fu, street fighting. Stuff like that.”

“Sounds cool.” Jackson said taking a step towards her, “So I hear you are new here, where you from?”  
“Kansas.”

Jackson’s chest tightened when he heard Raleigh’s heart beat change. Lie! “Oh, really?”  
She nodded, “Yeah, there’s this little town there called Parker, it’s only got about three hundred people.”

Jackson listened carefully to her heart. It was the truth. “So not to be creepy, but Stiles told me that you’re emancipated from your parents.”  
She laughed, “I guess everyone knows now.”

“Could I ask why?” Jackson asked suddenly covering with, “You know if you want to I didn’t mean you had to tell me.”

Raleigh smirked and bit her lip, “No, it’s fine,” She smiled and straddled the bench in front of her so Jackson sat down a few feet away from her. He couldn’t believe he was this calm. “It’s really complicated, uh. I’m not actually emancipated from my parents. They’re dead.”

Jackson’s mouth fell open but Raleigh held up her hand to stop him from saying anything, “It’s fine, really. It was just… a few years ago there were some people who decided that my parents shouldn’t be allowed to take care of me. Don’t ask, there was a lot of pressure and I was taken away from my parents and shortly after they both died in a house fire.” Jackson watched as Raleigh looked at the floor, she hadn’t lied again but he did notice that she was choosing her words very carefully. “So after I left my parents I was kinda put in this orphanage thing with a lot of other kids. I was there for about three years when finally the… orphanage closed down and a friend of a friend helped me get on my feet. Like I said, complicated.”

Raleigh looked up to see Jackson’s eyes glossed over, “My parents died when I was born.” He whispered. Wait, what? Why had he said that?

Raleigh stood up biting her lip, “I know from personal experience that saying sorry doesn’t help. But… I feel your pain dude.”

Jackson shook his head and blinked his eyes, “Anyways, let’s see what you can do.” He said putting a smirk on his face while he stood up and grabbed the punching bag.

That made Raleigh smile and raise one of her eyebrows, “Oh okay.” She held up her gloved fists and repeatedly hit the punching bag a lot harder than Jackson thought she should be able to. When he had to start leaning his weight into the bag Raleigh laid off and smiled at him. “You know if you really want to see what I can do we can spar, I have extra gloves and some headgear.”

“I don’t want to hit a girl.”

Raleigh smiled and threw the gloves and head protection at him, “Oh, I can promise you that you won’t.” She said strapping on her head gear.

Jackson’s smirk never left his face as he slid the gloves on his hands, he was incredibly shocked by both Raleigh and the fact that he was functioning at one hundred percent. When they relocated to a spacious area in front of the showers Raleigh asked,   
“You’re not going to put on your head gear?”

“I don’t think I’ll need it.” He said getting a laugh from the girl, “Ladies first.” Jackson raised his gloves as the shorter girl danced around him looking for an opening.

He saw it coming, the left hook and he blocked it easily. But what he didn’t see coming was the hard right uppercut that connected with his chin making pain explode in his brain not to mention his chin. When he next blinked Raleigh was beside him kicking him hard in the back of his leg sending Jackson down to the floor. He watched her with wide eyes as she jumped out of his arm range and gave a little laugh, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Jackson stood up brushing himself off as Raleigh danced right back to him. Raleigh continually blocked every single hit he threw at her and after a few minutes he was breathing hard. Sudden anger flared up and Jackson started taking it as a real fight. He decided that if this girl could beat a man senseless, which she would probably admit to, then she could take a real punch. But he never landed a single one on her.

After a few minutes Raleigh got close enough and he threw a right hook, she dodged it easily jabbing into his stomach making him lean forward in the pain. Raleigh then proceeded to grab Jackson by the head and kneed him hard in the stomach and boxed his ears sending Jackson, with his masculinity running, down into a wall of lockers. He felt the pain rush through him and his wolf didn’t like it. Jackson knew he wasn’t in danger of turning but he knew his eyes might be glowing so he kept them closed holding his stomach.

“Oh, my God, I didn’t mean to hit you that hard.” Raleigh said pulling her gloves off and kneeling beside Jackson, “Are you okay?”  
“Yeah, I’m fine.”  
“Open your eyes, are you okay? Did you hit your head? You might have a concussion.” Hearing Raleigh so nervous and scared Jackson smiled and tackled the girl opening his eyes he held her down as Raleigh fought and tried to buck him off. But she was so much smaller than him there was no way she could push him off.

Jackson smiled, “I win.”  
Raleigh gasped a smile, “You cheater! How dare you!”  
“Well, when a girl is a strong as you there’s not much else to do.” Jackson explained while Raleigh stopped moving underneath him. Jackson was in complete control of himself and he was loving it. Especially since every part of his body was covering Raleigh’s.

The girl smiled, “You haven’t won yet.” Raleigh snapped her head up head butting the bridge of Jackson’s nose. She then used the extra space between them to knee him in the crotch and roll out from underneath him. 

Jackson rolled onto his back both hands covering his face. That had really hurt. And his wolf was internally struggling. He wanted to fight back and revenge his pain but the wolf also knew the pain bearer was his own Mate. Jackson heard Raleigh walk up to him and he cracked his eyes barely, not sure if his eyes were glowing. She set something down on his head and it was cold.

“Sorry, I guess that was a little low.” Raleigh said as she leaned over him, “I kinda got the feeling you don’t like losing.”

Jackson sat up holding the ice bag on his head, “I don’t.”

Raleigh grinned and slid Jackson’s gloves off of his hands and put them in her bag, “Sometimes you have to accept defeat graciously to avoid getting it hard and abruptly.” He noticed that Raleigh said the phrase like it had been reiterated into the girl.

Jackson smiled, “Well, I didn’t manage to hit you so I guess you win.”

He watched as the girl went behind a row of lockers and changed coming back out in a new shirt and her jeans, “Actually I win solely in the fact that I royally kicked your ass. Fair’s fair.”

Jackson stood up taking the ice off of his face, “How’s it look?”

Raleigh leaned forward and gently touched his face, “I think you might still keep those good looks after all. But at least I wiped that snarky look off your face.”

He smiled at the brief touch and heard the bell ring, he waved when Raleigh ran off but Jackson wasn’t worried next period was Chem. Class, he’d see her soon. After making sure that he didn’t look like he’d just been beaten up by a girl who probably weighed one thirty and was five foot four he grabbed his bag and rushed to Chemistry sitting down next to Stiles, watching the door for Raleigh.

“So, hey Jackson how’s it going?” Stiles asked twitching his fingers.  
Jackson smirked, “None of your business spaz.” He sounded a little smug as if yesterday and this morning was just a fluke, “Why, what’s up?”

“Uh, see the thing is when Raleigh was having lunch with us Scott and Lydia both realized that Raleigh was lying about a few things and they kind of think that maybe she’s a hunter that the Argents hired to keep watch on us at school.”

“What? No.” Jackson shook his head, “She lied about being emancipated because her parents are actually dead and the orphanage she was at was closed down. She said that a friend of a friend got her back on her feet.”

“Yeah and what if that friend of a friend is friends with the Argents?” Stiles asked, “Listen I like Raleigh too and I don’t think that she’s a spy but until we find out for sure we’re going to need to lay low and stay away from her. Scott’s already texted Derek about it and we’re meeting at his place after school.”

Jackson stared down at the table. Raleigh might be a spy for the Argents? That was certainly possible, with all that they were capable of putting a girl in school wouldn’t be that hard. But Raleigh hadn’t lied to him about the orphanage… But she had said it was only kind of like a orphanage, and where the hell did she learn how to fight like that? What if it was true, what if Raleigh had tricked him and she wanted to kill him? Jackson grabbed Stiles by his arm and drug him out of the class before Raleigh showed up.

“Text Scott and tell him we need to get to Derek’s house now. We’re not waiting around to deal with this. If she’s a hunter then she’s probably already onto us so none of us are safe here.” Jackson said pulling out his own phone, “I’ll tell Lydia.”

Twenty minutes later they were all standing in the parking lot piling up into Stiles’ jeep.

“Do we have to all take one car? It smells funny in here. And why isn’t Allison coming?” Lydia asked from the back seat next to Jackson.

“Yes,” Scott answered looking back at her, “If anyone sees three of four cars leaving the school they’ll get suspicious. But just one won’t be a problem. And Allison’s not coming because she’s human and she’s not in danger.”

“Yeah, but if Raleigh really is a hunter then she’s already seen you two all over each other. So you’re both already dead.” Lydia pointed out very unforgiving.

Scott sighed and leaned back in his seat as Stiles pulled off the road and into the woods to Derek’s house they go, “I know, don’t remind me.”

When they got to Derek’s house Jackson noticed that the Alpha werewolf was waiting on the front porch of his burnt down home. They all walked up to the porch stairs as Derek strode down them, “What seems to be the big emergency?”

“Stiles invited a hunter to our table at lunch!” Lydia answered immediately.  
Stiles pointed a finger at her, “Traitorous bitch!”

“Quiet!” Derek’s eye always twitched when his pack drove him crazy, “Seriously, what is going on? One person!” He cried out before all the teen wolves could open their mouths. 

“All right this is what happened. I met a nice girl in Chemistry named Raleigh McKenna who just moved here from Kansas and is emancipated from her parents and I invited her to sit at our table and when Scott and Lydia heard her say that they knew it was a lie which could possibly make Raleigh a mysterious hunter girl hired by the Argents to kill us all. Ooor… perhaps she is a very complicated teenager who doesn’t tell complete strangers the complete truth and certainly has a good reason for it. And anyway she may or may not kill us all so we don’t know what to do. By the way hey hun. Is that everything?” Stiles carried on making sure that she didn’t expose the fact that Raleigh might also be Jackson’s Mate in front of Lydia and Scott.

Every wolf had a sudden uncharacteristic eye twitch…

“Yeah, that’s everything.” Stiles whispered.

Derek cleared his throat and looked at the kids. “So the problem is a girl lied to you about her past and because of that you think she may be a hunter and want to kill us all?”

“Yes!” Scott shouted wanting to be the first to answer.

“She told people that she was emancipated because her parents were killed a couple years ago and she got sent to some weird orphanage where they taught them how to kick the ass of a man.” Everyone stared at Jackson. “Yeah, I saw her working out and we sparred today and she kinda… kicked my ass.”

Scott looked at Derek, “You may not be scared by that but as someone whose been beaten up by Jackson I say that’s scary. And we have to figure this out soon because school ends in like twenty minutes and Raleigh knows about me and Allison; if Raleigh is a hunter then the Argents know. And that means that Allison could walk into something bad.”  
Derek shook his head, “I can’t stop them from punishing their child for something she wasn’t supposed to do. But that may be all the proof we need.”

There was a sudden silence between the wolves.

“That could definitely work. In a perfect world.” Lydia said smartly, “We’ll have to test her to see if she’s a hunter.”  
“How do you expect to do that?” Jackson asks.

“Well… Derek could turn into the alpha and catch her in say a dark alley alone and see if she tries to shoot him with wolfs bane.” Lydia says slowly, “That would be super dangerous, but in case you guys want to risk it anyway before I left school I managed to swipe her file.” She held up her USB. Jackson took his back pack off his shoulders, reaching inside he gave Lydia his tablet.   
Lydia plugged it in and tapped a few times before reading off of it. “Okay it says that she lives on 211B Cedar Springs. That’s the apartment complex right next to the school.”

“Okay so what exactly does that give us?” Derek huffed, he wanted a real plan if he was going to have dangle his ass.

Stile pitched in, “We could go to her apartment and wait for her to leave and then have Derek go alpha and corner her in an alley and if she fights we run like crazy and if she doesn’t fight Derek backs off and Scott and I can find her after he leaves and get her back to her apartment.”

“That could actually work, but can you all run fast enough?” Derek said looking at them hard.

“Stiles and Scott will be waiting in the jeep and Jackson and I on the roof, the complex only goes three stories high.” Lydia answered.

Stiles smiled and looked at his Mate, “That sounds beautiful let’s do that.”

Derek sighed heavily, his pack was… special to say the least but it was worth a try. He trusted his pack to get the job done. Whether it was running or scaring the piss out of an innocent teenage girl. He looked at Jackson, Stiles had told Derek that morning that Jackson’s wolf had claimed Raleigh as it’s Mate from one look. “It could work.”

Jackson nodded, “Yeah let’s do it.”

Scott looked at his phone, “School lets out in seven minutes!”

“Stiles and Jackson with me. Scott and Lydia in the jeep. We’ll go to the Argents first and see if there’s a fight. But we will not interfere if there is!” Derek said looking at Scott who nodded.

Lydia sighed, “That jeep smells bad.”

Derek rolled his eyes and walked to his Camero. After everyone was strapped in Derek felt like he was running a convoy to town as he started the car. He looked to Jackson in the passenger side seat, “Stiles told me your wolf said that Raleigh was your Mate.”  
Jackson nodded numbly staring out the window. 

Derek was quiet for a moment, “If she isn’t a hunter then she’ll be allowed into the pack immediately.” He paused, “But if she is… you can’t go near her ever again.”

Jackson nodded again showing no sign of emotion and Derek sighed. He didn’t mean to be cruel to his Betas; Derek knew what it was like to stay away from Stiles. Derek prayed that Raleigh was not a hunter and everything could work out for once.   
By the time Derek and Scott pulled up to the road beside Allison’s house Lydia had three way dialed Jackson and Allison so that both cars could hear the innocent chat between two normal teenage girls.

“Hello?” Allison answered and Stiles put a hand over his mouth just in case.

“Hey Allison, what’s up?” Lydia said in a sweet voice.  
Allison laughed, “Uh, nothing I guess, I’m on the couch with my dad watching Jaws. Please save me!”

All of the wolves hearts sink for a split second.  
Allison went on, “He knows I hate sharks he’s so mean to me!” She said laughing. The strange sound of Chris Argent laughing went over the phone in both cars. Every sighed sweet relief and Lydia hung up with Jackson leaving both cars on speaker phone.

“Okay so either Raleigh is smart enough not to tell the Argents about Scott and Allison. Or she’s not a hunter, let’s go.” Stiles said hanging up with Lydia’s phone.

Derek shook his head at his Mate and saw Jackson’s resolve shining. Derek took one look at Jackson, he looked so confident that Raleigh was not a hunter. He even smirked his usual smug smirk. 

It only took about five minutes to get to the school and only another minute to get them to Cedar Springs B Building. They all exited the cars a block down the road. Scott and Stiles hopped in the jeep as Lydia and Jackson scaled the walls quietly. Derek took a step towards the alley before he turned and went back to Stiles.

Derek kissed his Mate just in case, and he heard the familiar sound of Scott choking and smiled, before running into the dark alley and up to the roof. As soon as all three wolves were on top of B Building they only had to wait ten minutes before Raleigh walked out of her apartment. Carrying a small binder and a pair of binoculars. Her apartment was on the top floor so the three wolves were only feet away from Raleigh. Derek watched as the girl walked down concrete stairs and by the time she got to the bottom Derek was fully transformed, jumping from the roof.


	3. Chapter 3

Raleigh was minding her own damn business. HER OWN DAMN BUISNESS! When she felt this vibration through the concrete like something fell, she turned around taking her ear buds out and looked around. 

Raleigh didn’t see anything other than the concrete stairs built out of the wall that she’d just come down and shrugged walking onto the sidewalk. Out of fucking nowhere comes this giant blur flying over her head and there’s a red eyed giant dog right in front of her. Raleigh started back pedaling when the dog growled and snapped at her, making her fly backwards fast and suddenly the sun was blocked out, getting very dark.

Fuck, Raleigh just got cornered. She turned around and looked desperately at the nine foot concrete wall that stood in her way that joined the A and B buildings. No! She stood in the middle of the alley and stopped, wincing away from the dog taking deep breaths. “Okay just calm down if anything Mr. Giant scary dog is going to respond to calmness right?” 

The dog snorted his nose and Raleigh took that as a yes. “Yeah, okay let’s see red eyes, probably rabid, as in no control of his goddamn mind, oh fuck I’m gonna die a virgin! No, I’m not focus okay.” She took a deep breath and watched the dog move closer slowly. “Yes, focusing. Right looks like a giant wolf, but this is California so it’s just a giant rabid dog,” The dog snorted again and sniffed at her. Raleigh froze.  
“Do I smell good?” She said holding out her hand slowly, “Huh, you just wanna sniff me, or possibly bite my arm off whichever, please don’t though.”

The dog barked at her and she focused again, “Yeah right here sniffy sniff.” Raleigh winced back as the red eyed dog sniffed her arm and got closer sniffing her feet. The dog looked right into her eyes and whined. “Aww, you’re a sweet thing aren’t you?”

The dog suddenly backed up and growled at her and she snapped her hand back, “No yes of course, we’ll keep it professional. You are indeed a scary dog and I am afraid of you, you little teddy bear you.” Raleigh smiled when the overgrown dog growled at her again before running out of the alley and out of the small parking lot. Raleigh took a deep breath and let it out before moving, straight to the wall to keep her shaky legs from giving out.

What the fuck? She’d read online that this town had some wild animal attacks but that was insane. She could have died in this dark fucking alley in the middle of the day by a godamn dog. After everything she’d done. What the fuck? All of the sudden Scott and Stiles were running down the alley yelling at her. “Hey what’s the matter Raleigh?”

Her eyes boggled out of her head. “You didn’t see that fucking huge red eyed dog? It was gigantic and I thought it was going to eat me!”

Stiles cocked his head, “Really, a big red eyed dog? Oh, that guy’s a softie really.”

Raleigh opened her mouth to shout again but she stopped, “Well he did just sniff me. But he scared the shit outta me!”

Stiles patted her on the shoulder, “Yeah, he does that.”

As they walked out of the alley together Scott asked, “So what were you up to Raleigh?”

She gestured to her booklet and the binoculars around her neck, “I was going to watch birds.”  
Both of the boys looked at her and laughed until they realized she was serious.

“I get paid by the National Wildlife fund to put in so many hours a week looking for rare birds. Like a ridiculous amount of money.” The girl explained.  
Scott looked at Stiles behind Raleigh’s back and mouthed ‘truth.’

“Wow that’s a really cool.” Stiles said and as he did Derek’s black Camero pulled up next to his jeep and all three wolves got out. “Raleigh meet my boyfriend Derek Hale.”  
Raleigh’s eye brow shot up as Derek walked over and shook her hand, “Wow, hi nice to meet you.” She flicked her eyes towards Stiles with a smile, “You son of a bitch.”

Stiles smiled big in return putting his arm around Derek, “Yeah, I know.”

Derek gave his Mate a squeeze and looked back at Raleigh, “So Stiles says that you’re new in town?”  
Raleigh smiled noticing how everyone was making their way over to her, she felt a little uncomfortable, especially with what had just happened. But it’s not like these people were out to get her, “Yeah I am.”

“There’s a nice steak house just a block away. We’d love to give you a big welcome to Beacon Hills.” Derek said with a warm and friendly smile while Lydia and Scott both went slack jaw.  
Raleigh’s smile grew, “Oh, no I don’t want to be a bother I just-”

“I insist.” Derek said, “Please.”  
The human girl laughed and ran back up to her apartment quickly.

“Uh, what exactly is going on?” Lydia asked turning to Derek.  
Stiles answered for his boyfriend, “We just scared the living day lights out of an innocent teenage girl who lives alone and just moved to a new place to prove that she didn’t want to kill us. We’re inviting her to dinner.”

Lydia scoffed dragging Scott inside the Camero as Raleigh ran down her apartment stairs struggling to get her left arm in her jacket. Before words could be exchanged Jackson helped Raleigh into Stiles’ passenger seat and climbed into the jeep from the back. Stiles smiled knowingly at Derek who sighed relief. For once everything may work out.

 

The party of four werewolves and two humans got a table quickly at the steak house and after Derek insisted on paying the tab they were all sat down and ordered their food. The process of sitting had been awkward. First Raleigh had been seated first as the guest of honor, followed by Jackson and Stiles on either side of her, Lydia next to Jackson with Scott beside her and Derek taking the final seat beside Stiles.

“So what exactly do you do for a living Raleigh?” Lydia asked skeptically.  
“I work for the National Wildlife. I keep a look out for rare birds in the area. It’s a pretty sweet gig.”

“Wow, so how did you get that job?” She asked sipping on her water.  
Raleigh shifted in her seat feeling uncomfortable with the third degree she kept getting from Lydia, “Uh, a friend of mine called a friend of hers and pulled some strings. It was a little difficult because I’m so young but I finished all the training necessary so they thought why not.” She paused as the wolves listened to the truth in her heart. “So Derek what do you do?”

“I took over the family bank a few years ago.” Derek replied.  
Forty five minutes later the entire table was laughing heartily while Stiles told stories of him and Scott as younger kids. Raleigh noticed that Jackson wasn’t actually speaking, just laughing and nodding where he should, she looked at Scott, “So where is Allison, Scott?”

“Uh, she decided to spend some time with her dad today.” Scott answered nervously.  
Raleigh nodded and looked at her phone, “Oh, I just remembered I have some phone calls to make before it gets too late.”

After that the gang immediately left dropping Raleigh at home. Derek dropped off Scott and Lydia at their homes before taking Stiles and Jackson to his burnt down home. As they walked inside both teenagers were smiling and Derek sat on the couch.

“So…” Stiles said sitting in Derek’s lap, “Is she amazing or is she amazing?”  
Derek smirked looking at Jackson who looked a little embarrassed, “Do you honestly think she is your Mate?”

“Yes.” Jackson replied quickly and firmly.  
“Yeah, but did you notice how he never opened him mouth around her?” Stiles snickered, “He’s a little scared.”

Jackson gritted his teeth, “I’m not scared! I just can’t think around her. Her scent is so distracting when I look at her…”  
Derek held up his hand, “As long as you’re no longer in danger of turning around Raleigh, I can’t really help you with trivial high school things. Just try not to embarrass yourself.” Derek pulled Stiles tightly into his lap shooting Jackson a dangerous look, “You can run home now.”

Jackson nodded escaping the house as quickly as he could realizing what was about to ensue. Like he said, Jackson was happy for Stiles and Derek, but he didn’t want to watch. And running back to the school was his only option Jackson thought as he transformed and began rushing through the woods. 

Right as Jackson got close to the school he picked up Raleigh’s scent making him freeze mid air, crashing down into the ground… hard. Jackson winced as he stood up in wolf mode and realized he was in the clearing of woods behind Cedar Springs. He really shouldn’t. But we want to! Not helping! We need to! Shit. 

The wolf took over running through the clearing and jumping onto a fire escape. The wolf climbed to the top of the ladder and looked to the building next to him. In the open and lighted window of Raleigh’s bedroom, the girl was jumping up and down on her bed dancing to The Final Countdown. His chest tightened when he noticed that Raleigh was wearing a tight black tank top and a pair of shorts. Jackson smirked and then realized he was back to human. Damn. Worth it. Agreed.

Jackson smiled as he heard Raleigh shout proudly, “It’s the final countdown!” Before jumping off her bed doing guitar riffs. So this is what she did for fun? Weird. Suddenly Jackson’s hearing picked up the sound of a phone vibrating and so did Raleigh, she paused the music and answered the phone flopping onto her bed.

“Chen’s Chinese house, how may I help you?” Raleigh said with glee smiling.  
“Yeah two orders of fuck you to go please.” A teenage sounding girl said through the phone.

“I love you too, Constant.”   
The other girl laughed, “It’s good catching up with you. What’s it been three weeks? You are my closest friend.”  
It was Raleigh’s turn to laugh, “Okay, but seriously, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

Constant spoke seriously, “Sasha’s dead.”  
Jackson furrowed his brow and leaned over the ledge of the building to hear better.

Raleigh was sitting up now, “What? How?”  
Constant sighed, “I don’t know it looks like a simple mugging… four to one.” The girl’s voice cracked, “Listen, I’m calling everybody just in case. Faith and I think that one of the old instructors is killing everyone who got out.”

“What? Well… who do you think it is?” Raleigh asked standing up, before sighing heavily. “This was a mistake.”  
“No!” Constant said loudly. “No, our friends have lives now, I have a life, and you have a life. This was not a mistake. Freedom is never a mistake.”

Jackson was seriously freaking out here. What the hell was Raleigh and Constant talking about? And just what the hell was his Mate involved in?  
Raleigh took a deep breath, “I don’t know. Maybe this placement was. I mean I’ve never been on my own before. Maybe I’d be better off on a actual field assignments.”

“I know where you’re going and no way. I have a substantial amount of money that says you will have a boyfriend in less than two weeks and Faith says one.” Constant clicked her tongue, “Go get ‘em tiger.”  
“A boyfriend? In two weeks?” Raleigh paused and laughed, “That would make me a whore… wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah, don’t ask me. I’m not exactly on the up and up with the male species. Traitorous little bastards, but uh, listen I have some other calls to make but Raleigh, just remember, we got our second chance.” Constant said solemnly.

Raleigh smiled, “And we kicked serious ass getting it.”  
Constant chuckled over the phone, “Yeah, we did. I’ll talk to you later huh? And watch your ass!”

Jackson furrowed his brow as the two girls hung up. He knew that Raleigh had to be involved in something, he wanted to ask her, beg her to tell him. But it was already clear to everyone Jackson’s communication skills were lacking, unless she was beating his ass. Then he got an idea, Jackson did have a therapist at his disposal. Certainly Hawthorne could shrink his head so that he could talk to Raleigh without looking like an idiot. That was kinda her job, right?

Jackson watched as Raleigh set her phone down and curled up into a tight ball. When he heard the heart breaking sound of Raleigh crying softly. Jackson’s wolf screamed at him, Go to her! No, I can’t!   
Before Jackson knew what he was doing he was standing at Raleigh’s door knocking. She needs us!

Raleigh answered the door with red puffy eyes, her hair a mess perfectly framing her face in a beautiful way making Jackson’s heart race. She stared at him for a few seconds before pushing her hair back. “Jackson, what are you doing here?”

“I… Are you okay?” Jackson asked, “Stiles told me about the dog thing.” He swallowed taking a step back, “I didn’t mean to interrupt you, if-”  
Raleigh smiled and sniffed, “Yeah, I’m fine. I thought I was going to wind up as giant dog chow but, I’m alive so...” She trailed off. “But, but thank you for checking on me that’s really… nice.”

Jackson smirked feeling his chest fill back up with oxygen, “I’m just glad you’re okay.”  
Raleigh squinted her eye and cocked her head, “You always look so smug Jackson. Why is that?”

Jackson shrugged, “It’s just my nature I guess.”  
Raleigh smiled and took a step back into her apartment, “I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

Jackson opened his mouth to say something but nothing came out and he heard Raleigh laugh as she closed her door. He stood motionless for a minute before walking down the stairs to the ground. Not even five minutes later Jackson had reached his Porsche and gotten inside sighing. Why couldn’t he freaking function around one girl? Every time he opened his mouth around Raleigh nothing but crap came out. Jackson growled and clenched his jaw as he took off in his car glancing at the radio clock. 8:00. Damn, he hoped his parents didn’t ask Jackson where he’d been.


	4. Chapter 4

Jackson was waiting outside Hawthorne’s office building right around the time school started. He sighed and pulled his jacket tighter around himself when he saw his therapist pull up in the parking lot. Hawthorne got out of her car grabbing her briefcase, “Jackson? Is everything okay?”

Jackson nodded as she walked closer, “Yeah, I was just wondering if I could talk to you about something.”  
“Of course.” She said unlocking the office’s front door and leading Jackson to her office. Hawthorne sat down behind her desk and took a sip of her coffee, “What would you like to talk about Jackson?”

The boy hesitantly sat down in front of the therapist, “Okay well, remember when you asked if I had a special someone?  
Hawthorne nodded.

“Well, there is this one girl I just met… but see the thing is.” Jackson paused before completely humiliating himself, “I- I can’t talk to her.”  
Hawthorne’s eye brow shot up and Jackson could see she was trying to curb the smirk on her face, “Go on.”

Jackson took a deep breath before continuing, “See whenever I try to talk to her she looks at me and I just… I- I can’t focus. And this has never happened to me before!”   
Hawthorne nodded, “So what you’re saying is that you feel nervous around this girl?”  
“Yes, you have to help me.”

Hawthorne squinted her eye, “How do you want me to help you?”  
Jackson’s mouth hung open, “You’re a therapist, aren’t you supposed to help me? Give me advice or something?”

Hawthorne sighed with a smile, “I am a therapist Jackson and I can give you advice. But I’m not here to help you pick up girls.”  
He leaned forward in his chair, “You don’t understand, she’s not just some girl. And… there’s more.”

The woman’s eyes seemed to sparkle, “Go ahead,”  
Jackson licked his lips, “She has secrets, things that she lies to people about, and I don’t know how to make her trust me.”

“How do you know she has secrets? Unless she’s not very good at keeping them.” Hawthorne said leaning back.  
“I may have overheard a conversation she had with a friend.”

Hawthorne’s mouth opened in shock like Jackson had broken some kind of girl rule. Crap. He was screwed. “Jackson, while I cannot approve of eavesdropping, I will help you. What’s her name?”  
“Raleigh, her name is Raleigh.” Hawthorne smiled and Jackson lied in expert fashion. Hey he was Jackson Whittemore right? “When I was listening to her I found out that she lied about some stuff about her parents. 

And it seems like she has a good reason for it, I-I don’t really know what to do.”  
Hawthorne glanced at her door then back to Jackson, speaking in a low voice, “Okay Jackson I’ll help you out if you promise to be this open at our appointments.”  
“Fine.”

“If Raleigh is keeping secrets from you and with good reason then the only thing you can do is be there for her.” Hawthorne paused, “The thing about secrets is that no one can keep one forever, and when everything comes crashing down around people who have secrets the only thing they want is someone who believes in them. So if you really want to win this girl over, you don’t need to talk to her. Someone used to keeping secrets will want someone to listen. And if you listen to Raleigh, Jackson, she may just open up to you.” 

Jackson stared at Hawthorne, he didn’t know why he felt so surprised but the woman did make complete sense. Damn, shrinks were smart. He jumped up and shook her hand before running out to his Porsche, he sped his way over to the school. He got there just in time for Chemistry class.

Jackson was out of breath by the time he made it to the classroom and sat in his usual seat beside Stiles, who was grinning at him. Danny sat at the table in front of him looking back, “Hey, Jackson are you okay? You missed morning practice.”

Jackson glanced around the room looking for Raleigh, not here yet. He looked back at Danny, “Yeah, I’m fine just had some stuff to take care of.”   
Danny shrugged turning away, he waved his arm, “Hey, Raleigh!”

Jackson looked up, his heart froze again, Raleigh was walking through the doorway smiling at Danny who was waving her over to his table. Jackson looked to Stiles expectantly, making the smaller teen grab his things and slam them down onto the table right as Raleigh reached for the chair. All three kids looked at Stiles who had literally thrown himself in the seat beside Danny.  
“Stiles, are you okay?” Raleigh asked with big eyes.

Stiles shrugged and threw his hands behind his head, “No, yeah, I just wanted to sit next to Danny today” He glanced at the boy, “We’re gonna talk about our boyfriends and stuff.” Raleigh nodded trying not to laugh. “You can sit next to Jackson though!”

Jackson and Raleigh made eye contact. “Yeah okay.” Raleigh said sitting next to Jackson taking her notebook out. Raleigh did most of the little talking between them, she explained how negative and positive ions reacted to each other a vise versa. Jackson just watched Raleigh and nodded. By the end of the class Mr. Harris assigned all the students a joint project with their partners. The students had to create a diorama of a common polyatomic negative ion, using steel coat hangers, markers and Styrofoam balls. As the supplies were passed out Raleigh spoke.

“Hey, do you guys want to come over to my place after school? We can work on the project and I’ll order Chinese?” She asked looking at Stiles, Jackson and Danny.  
“Totally.” Danny said, “We can meet up after school in the parking lot.”

Stiles beamed at Jackson and Raleigh, “Yeah of course, that sounds like fun. Like fun fun emphasis on fun, right Jackson?”  
Raleigh looked to Jackson, of course he couldn’t say no. He smirked his usual smirk, “Of course.” She looked at him like she had last night. “Oh, I’m sorry do I still look smug?”  
Raleigh smiled, “Yeah, it’s kinda all in this area.” She said gesturing to his whole face with her finger. While Jackson and Raleigh laughed Stiles and Danny shared a look.

“Is what I think is happening, actually happening?” Danny asked.  
Stiles nodded with a sneaky grin, “Oh, yes it is.”

Danny shook his head, “Yeah but Jackson doesn’t like… no offense to Raleigh but, girls like Raleigh.”  
“Maybe Raleigh’s special.”

Danny and Stiles both watched the love birds in silence until the bell rang and they all became scarce.  
For Jackson English couldn’t have ended sooner and he found himself standing by his Porsche as the students trickled out of the school. He spotted Raleigh walking with Stiles and Danny and he waved at them.

Raleigh’s mouth dropped open when she saw his Porsche, “Holy shit dude this is your car? No wonder you look so smug all the time!”  
Jackson smiled feeling proud, “Want a ride?”

Raleigh scoffed and dangled keys from her finger, “Sadly I brought my POS jeep, so no need. You guys know where my apartment is right?” She asked climbing into said POS jeep.  
The boys nodded and Danny got to his car following Raleigh leaving Jackson and Stiles standing together. Stiles was wearing a shit eating grin. “Isn’t this exciting? Friends hanging out, eating food, and doing school work.”

Jackson rolled his eyes at Stiles and the boys separately drove the mile and a half trip to Raleigh’s apartment. As both boys made their way up to Raleigh’s apartment they passed the Chinese delivery boy on his way down. When they got to the top of the stairs they found that Raleigh’s door was open. Jackson closed the door behind them and they both stared at the lush surroundings of Raleigh’s home. The whole floor was black marble the counters of her kitchen they walked through and parts of the wall. The walls were painted dark purple in the living room with a creamy soft carpet, where they found Danny and Raleigh sitting in the floor with their books and a bag full of Chinese. 

There was also a comfy looking black couch and love seat and a large table in front of the couch as well as a huge flat screen TV mounted to the wall. “Holy crap, your apartment is amazing!” Stiles said walking into the room with Jackson on his heels. Raleigh smiled as the two boys sat down next to her and Danny.  
“Thanks, you guys hungry?” She asked offering them both boxes of food.

They ate first talking about boyfriends and Jackson kept quiet, Danny talked about his exes and Stiles talked about Derek. When Stiles asked Raleigh if she had any exes or a current boyfriend the girl smiled and shook her head, “Oh, no I’m not really relationship material.” She’d chuckled. Jackson took that as a no, plus he smirked remembering what Raleigh had admitted in the alley when she thought she was going to die.

Then they started to work on their projects, Stiles and Danny making Perchlorate and Jackson and Raleigh doing Arsenate because the girl had claimed it was her favorite.   
The teens had bent the coat hangers into shape and had the right sized Styrofoam balls in all the right places but when they got around to coloring the balls in they got distracted. Stiles had marked on Danny declaring war between the two, then Stiles had marked on Raleigh, provoking the girl to tackle the boy, hold him down and write My boyfriend’s Hot on his forehead. When Stiles looked in the mirror they all laughed. Danny then asked Raleigh to write on him, so she wrote My ex is a Jerk onto Danny’s forehead.

“Okay now you have to do Jackson!” Stiles claimed loudly.  
Raleigh looked at Jackson, “What do you say?”  
Jackson tried to keep a straight face but he ended up laughing and nodding. He closed his eyes as she leaned close to him, her arm grabbing onto his shoulder. He breathed in her scent and his wolf whined inside. Jackson heard his Mate giggle a little before pulling away way too fast. He opened his eyes to see Raleigh laughing at him, Jackson looked in the mirror and narrowed his eyes.

“’Smug Bastard?’” Stiles read off Jackson forehead barely holding back his laughter.  
Jackson looked back at Raleigh and eyed the marker, “Your turn.”  
Raleigh squealed when Jackson took the marker and wrote Mine on her forehead, and when she looked in the mirror she gasped, “Dude, you claimed my forehead?”

Jackson laughed when Stiles spoke up, “Hey you claimed mine!”  
Raleigh shot Stiles a hard look, “Hey you started this Marky Mark!”

The sound of Danny busting out laughing infected the entire room. When it finally subsided Raleigh realized her phone was ringing, “Hello?” She asked with a happy sigh of laughter while all the boys sat back down. Jackson could hear the woman on the other end.

“Raleigh, it’s Faith. We’ve got a problem.”  
Jackson watched out of the corner of his eye as Raleigh’s face went blank, “What’s up?”

“Harkess was the one behind Sasha’s death , she was onto him Raleigh. He’s at Wynter’s compound and we think he’s gonna blow it with everyone inside. There’s an abandoned airstrip about five miles away from you, I’m sending you GPS. Be there in thirty I’m picking you up, bring your baby. Sorry girl, but you’re going back home.” Faith spoke like an Military general.  
“I’ll be there.”

“Roger. Out.”

Jackson watched as Raleigh hung up the phone, her heart started racing, and Jackson could smell the fear rolling off of her. Raleigh looked right back at him and Jackson could have sworn she looked like she might cry. “Sorry guys, but I have to go somewhere. So you’re going to have to let yourselves out.” Raleigh said picking up the markers and putting dots on the Styrofoam, “Jackson all you have to do is color these in and we’ll make an A.” She said sticking a marker in her mouth. Danny and Stiles cleared out and Raleigh handed Jackson their color coded almost finished project.

He swallowed, “Hey, Raleigh.”  
She looked up at him slightly.

“If you want to talk or something when you get back from wherever you’re going, just call me okay.” He said writing his phone number on the inside of Raleigh’s arm with a marker.  
Raleigh looked taken aback, “Thank you Jackson, that’s really nice of you.”  
He smirked smugly at her before walking away, “Take care of my forehead.”

Raleigh scowled at Jackson until she heard the door shut. Like lightening she rushed to her closet pulling out some clothes and a black duffel bag. Harkess killed Sasha? Anger and fear burned inside of her. Sasha had been one of Raleigh’s closest friends, and Harkess had been a mentor to Raleigh. Everything she staked her reputation on had come from Harkess’ training. How could he have done this to Raleigh?  
She swallowed setting the items on her bed, she kneeled throwing back her cover. Raleigh reached under her bed pulling out her baby. A Beretta M501 Sniper rifle made custom just for her, Raleigh sighed and bit her lip. “Let’s go to work.”


	5. Chapter 5

Raleigh huffed and jumped out of her jeep right as she saw a small charter plane start to descend. She smiled, she’d worried she wouldn’t make it in time. By the time Raleigh had gotten her bags and made it onto the tarmac Damien had the plane door open waiting for her.

“Hey Damien.” Raleigh said with a smile when she got close.  
Damien smiled at her back, “I’ll stow your baggage Raleigh, your friends are waiting.”  
Raleigh smiled as Damien took her bags and she jumped up the stairs. Her smile grew significantly when she saw Faith Stamen, Constant and Jack Lawrence sitting in the seats. “Oh, my God, guys it’s been way too long!” 

“Why do you have Mine written on your forehead?” Faith asked looking up first.  
Raleigh blushed touching her forehead, “Oh, I got into a marker fight with some friends.”

Constant jumped in, “And is that a phone number on your arm?”  
“Hah! I win!” Faith shouted, “Twenty mil in the bag!”

Raleigh crossed her arms scowling, “Stop betting on my love life! And I do not have a boyfriend!”  
Jack smirked at her and handed her a box of tissues and a water bottle hugging her tightly, “Welcome back kid.”

“It’s good to see you too dude.” Constant said as they all sat back down, “Sorry it’s on such bad circumstances.”  
Faith scoffed, “Oh, come on Constant every time I see you it’s under bad circumstances! Remember last year in Reno?”  
“Hey, that was not my fault. That was Jack all the way!” Constant shouted back.

Jack scoffed, “Hey, how was I supposed to know that chick was a Banshee?”  
Damien got back on the plane and sat next to Faith and they all fell into idle chit chat while they plane took off. When they finally evened out Raleigh looked to Faith, “Now what exactly is going on?”

“Harkess is fucking off his rocker.” Jack quipped with dark eyes.  
Faith leaned forward in her seat, “Harkess is pissed that Charlie is taking over after Wynter’s death. He killed Sasha for catching onto him and we have strong reason to believe that he’s planning on blowing the compound sky high with everyone locked inside.”

“Well why can’t we just call Charlie and give him a heads up? He could clear this all up before we land.” Raleigh said looking to Constant.  
Constant made a face, “Because Charlie will totally over react.” Raleigh winced internally, remembering the falling out Constant and Charlie had gone though. But when you’re partner shot you twice and threw your body into a river leaving you for dead it was taken personally. Orders be damned, it was wrong. Somehow almost two years later they had finally gotten on good terms again. Who said there was no honor among thieves… and killers, and generally dangerous people? “And we don’t want Harkess to know that we’re onto him. He might hurry his plans up.”

“Makes sense. So what’s the plan?” Raleigh asked. When she saw Constant and Faith grin she froze, “Oh, no.”

***************  
Eight hours later Raleigh was in a tree three stories high. She grumbled into her headset, “Just for the record I want to clarify that I do not like this plan! I’m a sniper, I don’t do targets from eight feet away right beside a friggin’ window!”

“Yeah I’m pretty sure you established that off the record too.” Constant laughed.  
“Quiet, he’s coming.” Jack whispered harshly over the radio.

Raleigh took aim with her Beretta M501 through the window just a few feet away from the tree she was sitting in. She watched as a fifty year old man walked into Charlie’s office to see Faith sitting on the desk. Raleigh’s finger tightened instinctively on the trigger. “Yes, Harkess please come in.” Charlie said.

“Faith we’re in position outside the door.” Jack sounded.  
Raleigh watched unmoving as Faith smiled at Harkess, “Instructor Harkess, pleasure to finally meet you.”  
Harkess smiled, “To what do I owe your invitation Miss Stamen?”

Faith’s smile dropped, “You worked for Wynters for many years did you not?”  
“Almost thirty years why?”  
“Because Mr. Harkess the Guild is worried that you don’t understand that a threat made to this compound is a threat to them.”

Raleigh watched as Constant and Jack walked through the office door with their pistols drawn. Harkess looked at them with a faint smile, completely calm. “I suppose this means you’re onto me.”  
Raleigh bit her lip, that was Harkess through and through. Always calm no matter what.   
“Yes, and while you left for training this afternoon we removed all of your poorly made bombs from the compound.” Charlie bit back angrily.

Harkess shrugged, “What can I say? I’m a marksman not a bomb maker.”  
Charlie smiled, “Yeah, well your star pupil has a rifle on you.”

On cue Raleigh flipped on the red sight on her scope, the light showing on the side of Harkess’ head. The old man looked straight at her and Raleigh felt a mixture of fear and anger. This man had killed her friend, and tried to kill more in the name of the man who took her away from her parents and killed them. Raleigh had trusted Harkess, her surly but caring, mentor. He betrayed Raleigh’s trust. And now it was over, Harkess was going to answer to the Guild for his actions, and they were not forgiving people.

Harkess smiled at her, “Really Raleigh? You could have found a better hiding place than eight feet away from me.”  
She shrugged putting her scope on his chest, “What can I say Coach? I wanted a good seat for the show.” Raleigh smirked. She knew Harkess couldn’t hear her through the glass but he could read her lips. She saw his smile grow and his hand twitched towards the pistol under his business jacket. Raleigh fired her rifle hitting Harkess right in the heart, his chest exploded as he pulled out his pistol. He fired off one shot before Faith, Charlie, Jack, and Constant gunned Harkess down. 

But of course this was Raleigh’s life. So that one stray shot that Harkess got off wasn’t stray, it was directed right at her. She shrieked as the glass shattered, exploding all over her, the bullet winged her left arm off throwing her balance off. Raleigh fell from the trees hitting a lot of limbs on the way down. Raleigh heard the distinct sound of metal snapping as she went. Her baby had taken a direct hit from a huge tree branch and the tip of the barrel had popped off. Finally she grabbed a hold of a limb and held on for dear life stopping her descent a few feet away from the ground. She heard lots of voices in her ear and sighed.

“Raleigh are you okay, answer me!” Constant yelled over the radio.  
“Harkess is down, inform the Guild.” Faith said over Constant.  
“Roger.”  
Jack’s voice came last, “Hey, she’s okay, everybody.”

Raleigh looked up as she pulled herself onto the limb, She saw her friends leaning out the window to make sure she was okay.  
“Hey, Raleigh did that hurt?” Constant asked giggling.

“I fucking hate all of you guys!” She held up the sniper rifle hanging from her arm by a strap, “This was custom made you know!” Raleigh shouted back with so much relief. It was all over, everything was okay. She was alive… or something like that. She groaned in pain as she climbed out of the tree.   
Raleigh was bleeding from a cut above her eye and she was bleeding slowly from the close call on her arm. She felt pain shooting up her back and in her bones. “Owww.” She complained. Suddenly Jack came rushing towards her, wow had he run all the way down for her?

He paused gasping for breath, “Are you okay?” The man eight years her senior asked looking at her for unseen blood.  
She groaned, “Ugh, yes, I’m fine. Now take me to Medical, I hurt all over.”

Jack smirked and walked Raleigh to the Medical building. After two hours the doctors had concluded that she had no broken bones, and she did not have a concussion. But they disinfected her face because apparently Raleigh had little scratches all over her face, they put gauze on her arm; She was also told that the scratch over her eye might scar. Bummer, but not a bad night’s work. They kept her overnight and sedated her so she could sleep through the night.

The next morning when Raleigh woke up she saw Faith sitting in Damien’s lap next to the hospital bed, both knocked out cold, she smiled. They were perfect for each other. Raleigh looked over to the couch to see the brother and sister, Jack and Constant, leaning on each other both asleep too. Charlie was in another chair on the other side of her bed with his face laid down on her bed. This was her life. These were her friends. So what if they were weird? Or strange. Or absolutely crazy. 

Raleigh smiled, she wanted this new life of hers to be able to work. Carrying on with a normal life and every once in a while meet up with her friends to kick ass and save people. However, in the pit of her stomach Raleigh knew it would be a stretch. She doubted everything would work out, she frowned closing her eyes again. She would talk to Faith about putting in for a full time field position. The few people she knew in Beacon Hills wouldn’t miss her, and Jackson… well Jackson would be okay. He’d find some other girl to swoon and that would be safe for him. Raleigh ignored the horrible sinking feeling in her gut and fell back asleep.


	6. Chapter 6

Jackson was furious as he opened the door to his Porsche and sat inside. Three days! Raleigh had been gone for three days, and he didn’t like it. Especially the way she had left, so afraid and unsure. Jackson started his car and headed over to Raleigh’s apartment squealing out of the school parking lot. Where the hell was she? Was she okay? Was she dead? That was the question that made it hard to breathe.

Jackson could have whooped when he pulled up beside Raleigh’s apartment and saw her jeep parked. Jackson smiled big and ran up the concrete steps and banged on Raleigh’s door. She must have gotten back sometime after school had started because Jackson had checked on the place that morning. His nose twitched a little as he could smell Raleigh as well as… something else.  
The door opened and his smile dropped off his face.

“Jackson, hey what’s up?” Raleigh asked with a smile.  
“What happened to you?” Jackson watched as Raleigh blushed.  
“There, you go. Being all rude.” Raleigh said shyly.

She had her hair up in a ponytail, giving full view of little scratches all over her face plus a pretty big gash just over her eye brow. Raleigh had what looked like an big scratch mark on her arm, and she was wearing an icy hot patch on one of her knees. Jackson could see small bruises on her arms and legs.

She looked up at him embarrassed, “I, uh… fell out of a tree.” Truth.  
Jackson’s eyes widened as he fingered the band aid on Raleigh’s forehead, “How did you do that?”

“I lost my balance.” Truth. Raleigh deadpanned and stepped back, “Come on in.”  
Jackson walked passed her his heart elating at her invitation, “Are you okay?”

Raleigh laughed as she closed the door and led him into the living room where a movie was paused on her TV. “I’m just lucky I didn’t break anything, but the doctors said I might have a cool scar though.” She said sitting down in the middle of the couch. Raleigh was fine, whatever she had been doing, she was back now and she was fine. Jackson’s nose twitched again at the one smell he couldn’t identify. It was stronger now.  
“What is that smell?” He asked as he sat down next to Raleigh.

“What smell?”  
“I don’t know, it’s just a weird smell.” Jackson looked at the smile on Raleigh’s face, “What?”  
Raleigh bent over and pulled a small pipe and a lighter out from under the couch and Jackson’s eyes widened, “It’s pot dude.”

“What the hell are you doing smoking pot?” He asked incredulously.  
Raleigh laughed, “The doctors gave it to me for the pain. And it’s not half bad.”  
Jackson watched with wide eyes as the girl took a long inhale from the pipe and looked at him. After a few seconds she blew out and his nose twitched again.

“From the look on your face, I’m guessing you’ve never smoked before.” She said with an eye roll. Jackson shook his head, “You have?” He asked.  
Raleigh laughed, “Yeah a couple of times before, when things were crazy. It really relaxes you.”  
Jackson looked at the pipe, “Can I-”

“Oh, hell no.” Raleigh said with a strict face, “I’m not going to be responsible for you getting high and doing something stupid. If you want to try it, go get your own drugs and do them alone, preferably locked in your room so you can’t get caught or do something completely stupid in public.”

“Did you just deny me drugs but tell me how to do them anyway?” Jackson asked as Raleigh took another drag on the pipe.  
“Yes, I’m a terrible person and I’ve made my peace with that.” She answered. “You want to watch this movie with me though, it’s one of my favorites.”  
Jackson leaned back into the couch as Raleigh un-paused the movie, “What is this?”

Raleigh smiled, “It’s Robin Hood: Men In Tights.”  
After watching less than ten minutes of the movie he frowned, “This movie is stupid.”

Raleigh stuck a finger at Jackson, “No this movie is funny, and I will not have you bad mouthing my favorite movie. I bet you’ve never even seen Princess Bride.”  
“What’s that?”  
Raleigh gasped punching Jackson playfully in the chest, “Dude, you suck, I don’t know if I like you anymore.”

“What?” Jackson asked fending off her hands, “Why?”  
“Because you’re a loser, even if you think you’re a big shot you have such a tiny idea of what’s cool, and it’s not even close to being cool!” She laughed scooting closer to him, “Now, shush, Robin’s about to crash the party.”

Jackson settled back down in the couch with Raleigh in a ball right beside him, touching him occasionally. And Jackson did laugh, and laugh hard while Raleigh giggled. He smiled and put his arm around her slowly, she leaned into him his wolf sighed inside.  
He didn’t care if she had secrets, Raleigh’s not making him watch the Notebook so she was automatically an improvement over Lydia. Tell her! His wolf screamed, No I can’t she wouldn’t believe me. Someone’s here!

Jackson sat up grabbing the remote and pausing the movie just in time to hear two knocks at the door. Raleigh smiled, “Come in!”  
“Who is that?” Jackson asked as footsteps came down the hallway.

There was a woman who looked maybe thirty, attractive dressed in blue jeans and a tank top just like Raleigh did. She had long brown hair, a good body and a duffel bag. The man behind her was taller and muscular, he had short cropped black hair and dark eyes. Jackson could immediately tell there was something off about these two by their scent. They smelled weird, like nothing Jackson had ever smelled before, it wasn’t a bad smell just different. The woman smiled, “Oh, I didn’t know you had company.”

Raleigh smiled standing up to hug the woman, “Jackson Whittemore, this is my Aunt Faith Stamen and her husband Damien.” Lie.  
Jackson froze, Oh Shit. What if Aunt Faith was like Aunt Kate? A hunter, what if they both were, what if all of them secretly were and this was a clever trap? He was never going to get a break, he was going to die here. Faith extended her hand to Jackson who was standing up now, “Hi, it’s nice to meet you Jackson.”

Jackson nodded, Faith’s grip surprised him, Damien just nodded in his direction. There was something weird in his eyes, like he was looking past Jackson and reading him like a book. Jackson suppressed a shiver. What the hell was going on?  
“Raleigh here told me about this giant red eyed dog that cornered her in an alley a few days ago and I thought. I just had to come up here and make sure my girl was safe.” Faith said sincerely.

Raleigh looked at Jackson, “She’s over reacting, as usual.”  
Jackson nodded and licked his lips. He had to get out of here, now! “Actually I just remembered that I have something to do today, so I’ll see you Monday at school okay?”  
Raleigh nodded and Jackson very calmly walked out of the apartment. Right as Jackson closed the door he looked around, it was past dark by then and Jackson didn’t see anyone as he transformed. He jumped to the roof of Raleigh’s apartment and sat down above the living room. He heard the girls talking.

“Damn, Raleigh you look like you fell out of a tree.”  
Raleigh scoffed, “Yeah, screw you and your genius plan, bitch.”  
“Oh, my God you’re actually smoking the weed they gave you.”

“Well, yeah I hurt all over why shouldn’t I?”  
“I never thou-”  
Out of nowhere Jackson was tackled, by a very big wolf. At first he had thought it was Derek, but the wolf didn’t have red eyes, they were a dark… purple glow. The scent hit him, it was Damien!

Damien growled at him and then jumped off reverting back to his human form, “I do hope you’re not planning on harming that girl, little pup.”  
“You’re a werewolf!” Jackson said, his mind just got completely blown. What happened to them probably being hunters?  
Damien nodded as if Jackson were a child, “Yes, and so are you. Now what do you want with Raleigh?”

Jackson growled when Damien used her name, “She’s my Mate.”  
Damien raised his eye brow, “Are you sure?”  
“Yes.”

Damien laughed, pinching the bridge of his nose, “Oh, Faith is just going to love this.”  
“Why? Who are you people?” Jackson asked angrily, He didn’t like not knowing what was going on.  
“Faith and I are here to find out why an Alpha cornered Raleigh in an alley.” Damien said tone emotionless and rough.

Jackson’s heart skipped a beat, “We thought Raleigh was a hunter spying on us. She was never in any danger I swear!”  
Damien squinted, “You’re telling the truth.”  
Jackson shrugged, “Yeah, so?”

Damien cleared his throat, “While I respect the fact that Raleigh is your Mate. On behalf of my wife I request that you do not ever do it again though. And as a gentleman caller, you should come back tomorrow, hmm?”  
Jackson nodded still a little freaked out.

Damien bowed his head to him, “My wife and I will be here for the duration of the weekend, just to ensure that Raleigh is perfectly safe here from anything, supernatural or natural. If possible we’d like to make it safer for Raleigh, especially if she’s a Mate.” Damien smiled, “I’m sure I’ll see you again.” He said completely vanishing into thin air leaving behind a weird smell.  
Jackson spun looking around the roof, what the hell, werewolves did not just disappear. Right? His heart was beating fast, his wolf was freaking out just as much as him. Shaking his head Jackson counted his losses and drove back to his house. When he walked in his front door his mother was waiting for him.

“Hey, honey, I’m making meatloaf tonight.” She said brightly smiling at him.  
Jackson nodded walking past her, he had too much to deal with right now. Talking with his mother about dinner was not important right now. As soon as Jackson got to his room he locked the door and dialed Derek.  
“Yes, Jackson?” Derek answered gruffly.

Jackson sighed, “I don’t know if this constitutes as an emergency but,” He paused gathering his thoughts, “Raleigh’s fake Aunt is in town and her husband, some guy named Damien is a werewolf. He jumped me at Raleigh’s apartment. They heard about you cornering her in the alley and Damien said they came out here to make sure she was safe.”  
A scary silence fell over the phone call, “Does Raleigh know?”

“No, I don’t think so.” Jackson said, “I told Damien the only reason I was around Raleigh is because she’s my Mate and he said that he and Faith were going to stay the weekend to make sure that Raleigh is safe around us.”  
Derek sighed heavily.

“Damien said I could go and see Raleigh tomorrow. Whoever they are I honestly don’t think they mean us any harm. I mean when Damien jumped me he was in full wolf form, he could have killed me if he wanted but he didn’t.” Jackson said desperately trying to convince Derek there was no danger.  
“Well, then I guess we’re going to have to prove ourselves to them, aren’t we?”  
Jackson sighed relieving his pent up panic, “I guess.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow.” Derek said hanging up.  
Jackson threw his phone onto his bed before getting into the shower, things were definitely getting very complicated in Beacon Hills.


	7. Chapter 7

It wasn’t even six in the morning when Jackson’s phone rang loudly, waking him from his dreams; that may or may not had featured Raleigh wearing almost nothing. Damn early morning callers! He opened one of his eyes and grumbled answering the phone, “Hello?”  
“Hey, Jack-Jack. It’s Auntie Faith.”

Jackson shot right up in his bed.  
“Raleigh’s still asleep and I have some stuff to look into today, so I need a babysitter. Plus I need to talk to you, so get your ass over here wolf boy.”

The line went dead and Jackson was frozen, after a minute of processing the phone call Jackson rolled out of bed pulling his jeans on. He wanted to make sure he made a good second impression on Faith so she didn’t have Damien kill him. He pulled on a t shirt and put extra deodorant since he was skipping a shower. Jackson grabbed his keys and quietly left his house.  
As usual Jackson’s Porsche was breaking several traffic laws on his way to Raleigh’s house but he didn’t care, not at all. He was so close to Raleigh at this point, so close to everything coming together, everything was going to work out. Jackson hoped at least.

When he pulled up to Cedar Springs B building he saw Faith standing alone beside a dark red newer model Jeep, smoking a cigarette and watching him intently. Jackson got out of his car and walked over to the woman slowly. She took a puff and spoke, “Jackson Whittemore, werewolf, co captain of the Beacon Hills lacrosse team. You used to have very good grades but a few months ago they turned mediocre.”  
Jackson threw a blank look on his face trying to mask his emotions. This had to be a test. Faith pulled a knife from out of her boot and set it on the hood of her car along with what Jackson guessed was a loaded gun.

“As I’m sure you’re already aware, I am not Raleigh’s aunt. But she is a very dear friend of mine. I think of her as family and you do not want to know the lengths I’ve gone to in order to protect my family.” Faith paused taking a breath. “I know that she’s your Mate, and trust me as a Mate to a werewolf I respect that.” She rolled her head to the side, “However I feel the urge to inform you that I killed my first naughty werewolf at the age of nine. And if you so much as lay a paw on her the wrong way, I will come back to Beacon Hills and I will kill you.” She took another puff of her cigarette, “And I will kill your pack for allowing you to hurt her, do you understand?”

Jackson nodded, too afraid of screwing up the situation with his words.  
“Good.” Faith smiled big and threw her cigarette down, “Welcome to the family kid.” She pointed at Jackson, “You’d better treat Raleigh good.” A slight southern accent slipped through.  
“I will, I promise.” Jackson blurted out.  
“Great. Now, Damien and I are going to take a look around town and make sure there’s nothing major going on. I know about the trouble that your pack has been having with the hunters in the area.” She looked up at him, “I’m all for you bonding with Raleigh and she knows about werewolves and supernatural creatures but she doesn’t know about you and your friends. And I want to make sure that she will be completely safe before I tell her everything.”

Damien walked from behind him and got into the SUV’s driver seat without a look.  
“Raleigh’s upstairs asleep, but when she wakes up you might need to help her with some of her bandages and if she starts hurting too much make her smoke the weed. It’s medicinal and she should use it.” Faith said holding out her hand to Jackson, “Take care of her Jackson Whittemore, she deserves it.”

Jackson shook Faith’s hand before asking, “What exactly is it that Raleigh is hiding?”  
Faith grinned, “You’ll get to find out if your little town is kosher.” She answered before jumping into her car.  
Jackson watched as the strange married couple drove off together and his heart soared. This was really happening! He smiled huge before running up the stairs and walking through Raleigh’s front door. He breathed her scent in deeply before walking into her living room and sitting down on the couch. Jackson could hear his Mate breathing deeply from her bedroom and he stayed unmoving for about half an hour before he heard her mumbling under her breath as she got up.

Raleigh walked into the living room and Jackson’s breath was taken away. Fuck! Her hair was a mass of red, sticking out everywhere. She was only wearing a thin tank top and boy short under wear that clung tightly to her. Jackson swallowed and suppressed his wolf, Raleigh was not wearing a bra at all and she looked… was amazing the right word? Basically Raleigh looked like a fantasy come true. Like the Raleigh from his dreams had just walked in.  
She yawned and looked at him slowly scratching her head, “Faith said she was getting me a babysitter but I didn’t think she actually meant it.” Raleigh either didn’t notice or didn’t mind that she was almost naked in front of Jackson, and he didn’t mind either.

Jackson’s eyes were glued to Raleigh’s chest as she padded into her kitchen. Jackson jumped off of the couch to follow her. He smiled when he saw her bent over, her head in the fridge, looking for something to drink. “So how long have you been here?” She asked blearily grabbing a Gatorade.  
Jackson shrugged, “Just for a little bit.”

“Hmm.” She hummed before leading Jackson back to her bedroom. “Wanna be cuddle buddies?” She asked nonchalantly and swallowed back two pills and her drink. “Faith and Damien are going to a bar in town but she said they had some stuff to take care of so I wasn’t planning on waking up till way later.”  
Jackson worried for a second that he was still dreaming. Raleigh had just asked him to be whatever a cuddle buddy was. But he found that he couldn’t speak and keeping his eyes off Raleigh was getting hard.  
Raleigh jumped on the bed moving under the covers, “Oh, come on, don’t think I can’t see the bags under your eyes. Do you ever actually sleep?”

Jackson shrugged and licked his lips nervously as Raleigh waved him onto the bed. She ordered him to take off his shoes, socks and shirt. She held the covers up while Jackson slid into the bed hesitantly laying on his side. Raleigh smirked at him.  
“Oh, I think the smugness just left your face. You never cuddle with anyone?” She teased scooting up next to Jackson’s body.  
He gulped, “Not usually.”

Raleigh laughed, “Don’t worry, I’m the best cuddle buddy ever.” She took his hand and rolled onto her side pulling him close. Raleigh tucked their tangled hands into her chest and leaned into Jackson’s bare chest before closing her eyes. “Now you just close your eyes and wait to wake up to some of the best sleep in your life.”

“Okay.” Jackson said barely keeping his voice normal. He could feel every curve of Raleigh’s body and he loved it. She’s perfect for us. His wolf claimed, tightening Jackson’s arm around Raleigh possessively. The girl fell into a deep sleep within ten minutes her body going limp against Jackson, and he waited another ten before daring to touch her.

Jackson ran his free hand down Raleigh’s arm, using the lightest of touches when he went over the large scratch on her arm. It was healing nicely and his wolf did not accept that. Jackson instinctively bent over Raleigh and licked all of her wounds, his saliva would make her heal faster. Raleigh made a little sound as he did, but she never woke up, just tangled her legs with his and continued sleeping. As much as Jackson wanted to lay there and stare at her forever sleep did eventually take him, and it was every bit as glorious as Raleigh had claimed.


	8. Chapter 8

Raleigh woke up slow, the feeling of being held was foreign to her, so it took the girl a second to realize why she was so warm. Raleigh smiled feeling on top of the world, she had Jackson fucking Whittemore in her bed! Oh yeah, it was a sunny eleven in the morning and Raleigh was doing good!  
She bit her lip, yeah she had totally just broken the Never cuddle with someone you’d sleep with Rule. But come on, Jackson was like the tallest of any other tall drink of water Raleigh had ever seen. And that was saying something. 

When you’re life is being played like a piano you tended to bond tightly with the people stuck in the same situation as you. So back at the compound Raleigh, Sasha, Constant, and Jack; Despite their severe age differences had been the closest friends. And given that they’re lives were so… complicated they needed strict rules and guidelines to survive. And among the many rules drilled into their heads by their instructors, the prisoners had come up with a short list. It went a little like this…

List of things to Never Ever do

Sleep with the Enemy.  
Given the fact that all of them were put in the situation in which to accomplish the goal of not getting your family’s or your own head blown off it would be necessary to sleep with someone you really didn’t want to. Well too bad, the gang had managed on every one of those occasions to remain unscathed. Sasha and Jack had already had sex, but Constant and Raleigh had started the game young and had still been virgins. The rule had really been Sasha’s way to keep Jack from worrying about Constant every time she had a job.

Relationships.  
One night stands were allowed while out on a job but you never gave anyone your phone number or any other means of contact. If you slept with someone outside the compound you never saw them again when you came back. Never. And relationships were not allowed inside the compound either. Their instructors forbade it and if you got caught you were killed on principal. Hence the severity of Constant and Charlie’s fall out…

Cuddle with someone You’d Sleep with.  
Cuddling was allowed by anyone though, girl or boy, with anyone you wouldn’t have sex with. And when they referred to cuddling, it is supposed to be a sex safe place where one person physically gave another person comfort. Raleigh had cuddled with all of her friends and some other people. And everyone respected that, and if they didn’t there were severe consequences in which you got the shit beat out of you and the instructors didn’t care. Cuddling was a serious thing, as it sounded, and on the very few times where anyone had taken advantage of another… it was field day, a very spirited field day. In which people died.  
But… Jackson had not grown up as Raleigh had, he didn’t know the rules. And that was why it was so easy to trick him into bed? Raleigh was seventeen and a girl, and Jackson was hot, and Ohmygod! Raleigh would sleep with him. Shit! What was she doing? This was a very bad thing! Oh God, what if he thinks she’s a whore now?!

Raleigh focused and checked her body, she was literally pressed against Jackson’s body with his hand now tucked underneath her. But Jackson’s hands were in the safe zones. That’s odd, with such a tight grip Jackson wasn’t bad touching her? Wow, was this guy amazing?

No! That’s right, no guy is amazing! Right? Raleigh bit her lip and tried to lift Jackson’s hand just enough for her to slide past without waking him up. Her skin had just left Jackson’s when the boy seemed to growl and pull her back. Raleigh gasped a little, she was back on him but hey look… Hands are still safe!  
Ugh, maybe she should just wake him up and tell him that she usually didn’t invite men into her bed. Raleigh twisted around to Jackson’s chest, and hello, hot shirtless guy alert. Shit! She licked her lips, this was not going like she planned. Her heart started beating faster and she swallowed dryly. Come, on get it together Raleigh! Error Error!

Then Jackson stirred and Raleigh looked up at him with her mouth open in surprise. He was staring back at her with hazel eyes and that damn smug look of his making it hard for Raleigh to not pant like a fucking dog.

“Are you okay?” He asked as if he knew how fast her heart was going.  
She smiled, “Yeah, I’m fine.”  
He smiled back at her. She was so screwed. Raleigh had to end this. It was too damn frightening for her. She was terrified of what might happen.  
“It’s just I have to pee and you won’t let me go.” Smooth, real smooth Raleigh. 

Jackson frowned and pulled away from her fast making Raleigh cold too fast. He sat up apologizing, “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to.”  
She smiled sitting up, “No, it’s okay, you have all those muscles so of course, strong grip.” Crap, no! He smirked again. Even though he was holding her eyes Raleigh suddenly realized that she was not wearing a bra and her shirt was pushed up her stomach. She blushed and pulled it back down crossing her arms over her chest. That’s when Jackson’s eyes looked away fast before skimming down her body, but Raleigh didn’t notice.

She cleared her throat, “I’m gonna go pee now.” She said running for the bathroom three feet away slamming the door closed and sighing on it. “I am so screwed. Maybe literally.” She whined and turned the shower on, “Shit.”  
Raleigh chewed on her bottom lip nervously, this was most likely a bad idea. Three days ago she’d been ready to leave this town with only a faint resemblance of remorse. Thanks to Faith now she was back and 

Jackson was in her bed. Shit. Shit. Fuck shit. What was she doing? Raleigh couldn’t remember as she stepped under the spray of the shower. She was either in this or she wasn’t. Whatever decision Raleigh came up with, she’d have to stick to it. No more running and no more diversions.   
But was Jackson Whittemore going to be worth living this lie long term? And what would he think if he knew what Raleigh was? An even more disturbing question ran through her mind. Was Raleigh worthy of someone like Jackson? What if she was the one who couldn’t make it work? 

Stupid Faith, why the hell had Raleigh listened to her? She could be on the other side of the world right now but instead, Raleigh had Jackson in her bed like an idiot. Raleigh sighed as she let the warm water run all over her body. They were just kids though right? Kids were allowed to have flings and nothing lasted forever. Raleigh didn’t really feel like a kid though.  
What the hell was she supposed to do? Jackson was nice and hot, and would probably more than willing to help Raleigh out with her… needs. In for a penny in for a pound, she decided.   
Well, first she had to deal with the fact that Jackson probably thought she was a whore now. “God, he definitely thinks I’m a whore now!”

 

“I am so screwed. Maybe literally. Shit.”  
At hearing those words Jackson blushed pulling his shirt on. Had Raleigh just gotten embarrassed and run away from him? Because to Jackson that’s what it looked like. He smirked remembering that she was a virgin but he had smelled arousal pouring off of Raleigh from the second he woke up. Jackson adjusted his softening dick through his jeans. Had he scared her off?  
Over the sound of the shower going Jackson could still hear Raleigh talking to herself. “God, he definitely thinks I’m a whore now! Just drag him in the bed why don’t you Raleigh? Idiot! You cuddled with him, now you can’t have sex with him, those are the rules!”  
Jackson furrowed his brow, what? No, he wanted-

“Ugh, but he’s so hot!” Raleigh said cutting off Jackson’s train of thought. “And he’s got all those muscles, and that face and that smug look, oh fuck!” Jackson swallowed when Raleigh let out a low heady moan and gasped.  
The fact that his Mate was talking to herself could not stop Jackson’s cock from swelling and biting into his jeans. His claws retracted and his wolf growled quietly. Raleigh was getting one off in the shower and Jackson could hear every tiny little sound coming out of her fucking mouth. She was panting now breathing only in big huffs and whined softly. She swore suddenly loudly biting back her orgasm and Jackson was at the door immediately. His wolf called out in Jackson’s voice, “Are you okay Raleigh?”

He heard her gasp suddenly and he could smell her strongly, “Uh, yeah I just got soap in my eye!” She called out. Lie. Jackson grabbed the door frame sinking his claws in while Raleigh started showering off her arousal and masking it with the scent of cucumber. “Plan B. Let him come to you.” When she turned the shower off Jackson quickly jumped back in the bed covering up his hard on. A minute later Raleigh walked into the room, wrapped in a towel, “Oh, I thought you would be…” She blushed.  
Jackson nodded, “I thought I might take a quick shower too.” 

Raleigh nodded and walked over to her closet. As soon as her back was turned Jackson jumped across the bed and ran to the bathroom quickly. He shut the door and ripped his clothes off turning the water back on, he bit his lip. He was so fucking hard, Raleigh’s scent was all over. Jackson stepped into the shower and the second he wrapped his hand around himself he came hard into the wall. He choked back his moan and slammed his free hand onto the wall. He was left gasping in the hot water as his vision swam. He had never come like that before. His fisted his cock again as it grew and huffed out a breath.   
Jackson came two more times before he actually showered and got out of the shower. He dressed quickly and walked out of the bathroom. He found Raleigh in the living room with a carry out breakfast in her lap. 

She pointed to another bag and Jackson found pancakes and a side of eggs and hash browns. “You do realize it’s twelve o’clock in the afternoon right?”  
Raleigh rolled her eyes and pushed a button on a remote that made the TV screen move. Jackson looked up from his breakfast to see the beginning of the Avengers. He smiled settling back as the both ate and watched the movie. When they were done Jackson threw his arm on the back of the couch and waited for Raleigh to move, it took ten minutes but eventually she was scooted next to him and he wrapped his hand around her shoulder.

She gasped and jumped away from him. “Ah, shit!”  
He jumped off the couch right after her, “What? I’m sorry, did I hurt you?”  
She shook her head and grabbed a stick of muscle relaxer, “No, I’m fine you just squeezed a bruise.” She handed him the stick and took her shirt off, “I can’t reach it you’re going to have to put it on.”  
Jackson watched as Raleigh turned her back to him pulling her shirt over her head and tight to her chest as if embarrassed. He gasped when he saw her back, there was a huge black and blue bruise that covered Raleigh’s shoulder and underneath the bruise there was what looked like an old gunshot wound. Jackson rubbed the stick lightly across Raleigh’s shoulder as she bit her lip from crying out. As she pulled her shirt back on Jackson took a step back asking, “Did you get shot?”

Raleigh turned back, “Yeah, a couple of years ago.”  
“How?” Jackson asked wide eyed.  
Raleigh sighed looking up at him, “Jackson, I’m glad that we spend time together and you’re becoming my friend. But… instead of lying to you straight out, you have to understand that there are… things that I can’t tell you about myself.” She paused looking at the floor, “And I’m sorry but if you can’t respect that then we can’t…”

Jackson sat down in surrender, “No, no more questions.”  
Raleigh bit her lip guiltily, “I’m sorry.”  
Jackson leaned forward grabbing her by the hand and pulled Raleigh down to the couch with him, “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”  
Raleigh smiled and cradled Jackson’s face in the palm of her hand, “How do you do that?”

“Do what?”  
Raleigh shook her head and closed the distance between their faces, she looked straight into Jackson’s eyes as she spoke, “Be so…tolerant.”  
Jackson scoffed, “I’m not trust me.”  
She cocked her head to the side, “Could have fooled me.”  
As Jackson tried to understand Raleigh’s meaning the girl climbed into Jackson’s lap and watched the movie. Jackson couldn’t have been bothered with the movie, Raleigh was here, now and stretched out on his lap smiling. Jackson waited a long time before reaching up to thread Raleigh’s red hair through his fingers, and when he did she sighed leaning into his touch. They stayed like that, for a long time, even after the movie had ended. They just laid together until both of their phones went off.

Pack meeting Culver’s Bar on 2nd and 7th. Mandatory! 5:00 –Derek. Jackson raised an eyebrow and checked the time, it had just turned four. Raleigh groaned and set her phone down before laying back on Jackson’s legs.  
“What is it?” Jackson asked stroking her injured arm.  
Raleigh whined, “Faith is putting me on lockdown, I’m not allowed to leave the apartment, until she gets back.”  
Jackson smirked, “Why?”  
Raleigh shrugged, “Dunno, but she probably has a good reason for it.”

Jackson’s hand found its way back into Raleigh’s hair, making the girl sigh contentedly before asking, “What about you?”  
He bit his lip watching Raleigh’s eyes flutter closed, “I’ve got lacrosse practice at five.”  
“On a Saturday?” She asked running her hand up Jackson’s free arm. “That sucks.”  
Jackson swallowed slowly, the temperature seemed to be on the rise in the apartment, “Yeah, I don’t know how long it will last.”  
Raleigh cracked open an eye and glanced at her phone, “It’s four fifteen now.” She said sitting up in Jackson lap putting more pressure on the boy’s half hard cock. 

“Yeah?” Was the only word that came to Jackson’s mind. Raleigh smiled shyly before straddling his legs. She smelled so good, Jackson felt buzzed like he’d just taken a few shots. Raleigh’s body was radiating heat and he reached out, grabbing her by the belt loops and pulling her closer until the two were hip to hip.  
Raleigh bit her lip nervously, “Well, everyone knows that you should always be fifteen minutes prior to an appointment.”

Jackson made a sound in his throat, maybe it was a growl or a hum. He didn’t really care, just tightened his grip on Raleigh’s jeans. He could smell their mixed arousal, hear Raleigh’s heart beating just a little too fast to be normal. When the girl’s hands slowly trailed their way to the back of Jackson neck she spoke again, “So that means you technically have almost twenty minutes before you have to leave.” Raleigh’s fingers raked down the back of Jackson’s head as she leaned into his ear whispering softly, “How should we pass the time, Jackson Whittemore?”

Jackson gritted his teeth leaning his face into the crook of Raleigh’s neck. She smelled so fucking good Jackson never wanted to move, ever again. If they could just stay like that forever. He breathed his Mate in and Raleigh made no sign of moving. Finally he answered her, “Whatever you want.”  
Raleigh pulled back from him slowly and smiled at him, Jackson noted the mischievous glint in her eye, “Whatever I want?” She chuckled, “Big mistake.”  
He opened him mouth to answer her but Raleigh put her finger to his lips shushing him. She took a deep breath, keeping her eyes on Jackson’s, Raleigh took his hands raising them into the air. Jackson shivered at how Raleigh’s hands never left his body through the whole movement. Raleigh smiled genuinely at him as her fingers gently lifted his shirt, skimming his sides all the way up she pulled it over his head tossing it to the other side of the couch. Raleigh then lead Jackson’s arms down to the top of the couch, “If you move your hands, I’ll stop.”

Jackson’s heart skipped a beat and he could feel his wolf rumble just below the surface. They both had waited so long for this. Maybe he was dreaming, maybe that was why Raleigh was gently rocking her hips back and forth over Jackson’s now fully hard self. His hips bucked up automatically, his vision was hazy but he never stopped looking into Raleigh’s green eyes, that now looked blown wide.  
Raleigh took Jackson’s face into her hand and leaned down, her lips ghosting over his before finally claiming them. Kissing Raleigh was better than anything Jackson had ever dreamed or imagined, her lips were chapped and a little rough but they tasted sweet and intoxicating. He heard Raleigh moan lightly when they parted their lips and Jackson’s tongue brushed hers. He felt her hands slide through his short hair; pulling just slightly. Jackson’s own hands tightened on the leather couch.

When Raleigh broke the kiss she was gasping for air, her lips red and plush. Jackson tried to lean into her again but she pulled back even farther making him growl in his throat. Jackson’s growling didn’t seem to bother Raleigh who just smiled and ran her hands all over his chest and arms, any exposed skin she saw, Raleigh would caress gently as if she was amazed by him.  
Finally she leaned down and licked Jackson’s collarbone making his body jerk, the couch protested lowly under Jackson’s hands as Raleigh moved up to his neck. She licked, and mouthed, and gently kneaded his flesh under her teeth, careful not to leave any marks but hard enough to make Jackson go crazy underneath her. She kissed him again and Jackson pulled her closer to him with his mouth, but Raleigh bit his lip sharply making his groan and open his mouth wider. The girl mapped out Jackson’s mouth with her tongue in a slow but efficient manner as her hand slipped down to Jackson’s jeans.

At the sound of Raleigh’s hands making quick work of his fly Jackson’s eyes flew open and he pulled back from his Mate’s lips. Raleigh smirked at him jerking his jeans down his thighs spreading his legs wide. He tried to say something, anything, but what Jackson had no clue, he just stared at Raleigh for a few seconds with his mouth open. She smiled again closing his lips with her fingers. Raleigh’s mouth went right back to his neck, nipping and sucking her way down his chest as her hands looked for any muscle, any part of his body, squeezing and dragging her nails over him.   
When Raleigh’s mouth reached the top of his boxers Jackson’s head fell back and he moaned loudly, more loudly than he’d ever admit to later. His hands were practically crushing the couch as he gripped it like a vice, he struggled to keep his wolf in check, but it seemed to be working. Jackson felt Raleigh’s weight disappear from his legs making him look back up. The sight of Raleigh on her knees between his parted legs almost Jackson coming right there. Her eyes caught his and she smiled like Jackson was the most precious thing in the world, like she was on her knees to worship him. It made his heart stutter and his hips twitch upward. 

Raleigh’s fingers hooked his boxers, pulling them down exposing Jackson’s fully erect cock, precum shining from the top. Jackson hissed through his teeth when Raleigh started to pump him slowly. “Oh, fuck.” The words tumbled out of Jackson’s mouth when Raleigh’s tongue flicked over his head teasingly, “God, yes please,” Jackson whimpered as Raleigh took him down completely like a pro. He struggled to breath properly. 

Raleigh’s mouth was like pure sin and pleasure in his cock and she didn’t even mind when Jackson’s hips stuttered into her mouth. Wasn’t this girl supposed to be a virgin? He gasped out, Raleigh’s tongue just might be the death of him. As a response Raleigh hummed around his cock making Jackson moan losing all brain function, “R-Raleigh, please.” He was losing it now.  
Jackson didn’t know what he was begging for, he just knew he needed something and Raleigh could give it to him. She smiled up at him around his cock and sucked harder. Jackson groaned as he came down   
Raleigh’s throat, his vision went black and breathing became a challenge. He barely even noticed how Raleigh licked him clean and zipped his pants up like nothing had happened. 

As Jackson came down from his high Raleigh picked up his shirt and settled back into Jackson’s lap, “Just in case no one’s ever told you before, you have a gorgeous O face.”  
Jackson scoffed, wrapping his arms around Raleigh’s waist, “If I didn’t have somewhere to be…”  
Raleigh cut him off with a smile, “I’m sure you’d have your wicked way with me. Arms up.”

Jackson shook his head with his arms in the air as Raleigh put his shirt on for him. He smirked back as her. Raleigh frowned suddenly, “Just for the record I was trying to make you think that I wasn’t a whore, but I got a little distracted. So don’t go thinking I’m just here to blow you okay buster?” She said poking Jackson in the chest, hard.  
“I don’t think you’re a whore.” Jackson said pulling Raleigh in for another kiss.  
Raleigh seemed very into kissing Jackson which made him wonder why she pulled away from him so quickly, soothing out the wrinkles in his t shirt. “Have fun at practice, don’t get hurt. Rah rah go team, all that jazz.”

Jackson smirked again picking Raleigh up easily and setting her down beside him, “I will see you later.”  
She gave Jackson a crooked smile, “I dunno, with all the other hot, muscle-y macho guys I entertain I might not be able to squeeze you in.”  
Jackson stood looking down at Raleigh confidently, “I’m sure we can work something out.”  
He planted a gentle kiss on Raleigh’s forehead before turning away, jumping a little as she swatted his butt calling after him, “They should write poems about your ass!”

Jackson smirked and walked out of the apartment feeling on top of the world. Of course if Jackson knew the things he was about to find out about his Mate, he would have run home and hidden under his bed like a three year old. Or like a smart seventeen year old.


	9. Chapter 9

By the time Jackson had made it to Culver’s Bar, it had just turned five. He turned his nose up smelling something repugnant. Jackson had never been to this part of Beacon Hills, and Culver’s Bar was on the wrong side of the wrong side of the tracks in his opinion. Turning the corner to the front door of the bar Jackson spotted Damien standing next to a taller man with a full beard. He overheard them whispering and chuckling about their wives.

Damien looked up at Jackson with a pleasant smile, “Ah, Mr. Whittemore. I’m glad you could make it.”  
Jackson frowned with a raised eye brow, “I’m here to meet Derek.”  
“Yes, in fact the rest of your pack is waiting inside.” Damien replied coolly.

The strange man gave Jackson a once over and sniffed, “Aren’t you too pretty to be a wolf, boy?”  
Jackson furrowed his brow as Damien let a laugh out, “Ah, leave him alone, Trager. Remember when you were a kid?”  
Trager laughed hard and Jackson started to sweat nervously, making his face emotionless.

Trager slapped Jackson on the back, “I’m just screwing with you, kid. And, uh, next time you bang your girlfriend you might want to shower before you go out.”  
Sudden rage surged through Jackson as he clenched his fists and bared his canines to Trager, just to have Damien hold him back with one hand.  
“He’s right.” Damien growled lowly, “You reek of Raleigh and sex. Now let’s go, they’re waiting on us.”  
Jackson growled at Trager once more before following Damien into the dark, smoky bar. “What the hell is going on?”

“Relax Jackson, everything is going to work out.” Damien said walking away through the crowd.  
Jackson sighed heavily as he followed Damien into the far corner of the bar, where not only the Pack was, but Allison and Faith were also there. Faith looked up from the table with a smile, “Ah, the gang’s all here.”  
Jackson nodded politely to Faith as he slid into the huge booth, Derek had a protective arm around Stiles and judging by his face he didn’t seem too pissed about the current events. Scott was clinging to a beaming Allison like there was no tomorrow, they really were gross. Lydia was seated next to him and immediately turned her nose up.

“Why do you smell li-” Scott started but Derek quickly slapped his palm over his open mouth giving the boy a dangerous look before switching to Jackson, “Glad you could make it Jackson.” The Alpha said with strong eyes.  
Jackson smirked cockily as Faith looked to her husband. He listened as the two laughed to each other in another language and Jackson ducked his head when Faith laughed loudly.  
Faith cleared her throat in her chair while Damien stood behind her, hands on her shoulders reassuringly, “Well, now that we’re all here… Let’s straighten up all the confusion.”

“Good,” Derek answered quickly, “How about who the hell are you?”  
Faith shrugged, “Sounds like a good place to start. My name is Faith Stamen, I’m here acting on behalf of a powerful organization known as the Guild. It’s a group of people with shit loads of money who concern themselves with all kinds of precarious situations. Initially I was here because Raleigh told me about what happened in the alley. Upon arrival I figured that your pack wasn’t a threat. So now I’m here to put a permanent stop to your troubles.” Faith smiled coldly and leaned forward on the table, “Now, tell me, did I lie?”

The wolf pack all looked to Derek’s stony face, “No.” He grumbled reluctantly.  
“I’m here, Mr. Hale, to inform the Argents that their war against you and your pack will not continue without the most dire of circumstances. Now I’ve talked to people who have worked with Chris Argent and he sounds like a real stand up guy. He doesn’t seem to have had any say in any of the actions that the family has taken against you.” Faith paused glancing at the whole pack, “The Argents will agree to fall into Chris’ line and their codes will be reinforced, full extent.”  
Allison gasped in shock and an early silence fell over that table.

Faith tilted her head towards Allison, “Your grandfather was a cold blooded murderer. He put hunters to shame everywhere and made a bad name for us.” Looking back to Derek she went on, “I can have a formal investigation started that will bring all members of the Argent family to justice for their crimes, that is if you wish to make a formal complaint, Mr. Hale.”  
The table’s direction was turned to the Alpha, after a few seconds he shook his head, “No.”  
“If you deny this offer now everything they have done to you in the past will be dismissed, and they can never again be tried for those actions.”  
Derek clenched his jaw staring back into Faith’s eyes, “I said no.”  
Faith nodded, “Very well, I have a meeting with Chris Argent at noon tomorrow at his house. You are more than welcome to join me, and we can rearrange the meeting if you don’t feel comfortable with that. But I can assure you that I have everyone’s best interests in mind. And I know you know that’s the truth.”

Derek bowed his head slightly to Faith, “I’ll meet you there.”  
Faith smiled cheerily whispering to Damien in, what Jackson guessed was Russian, making the other werewolf walk away. The woman clapped her hands together enthusiastically, “Well, now that the business is taken care of we can clear up this Raleigh mess.”

Jackson planted his hands flat of the table booth, “Who is she really?”  
Faith took a deep breath, “Raleigh’s parents owned a small business that was fronted by a man named Anixander Wynters. Wynters had a habit of fronting these small businesses and then running them down into the ground. And as reparation for his losses he forced the families to give him their children, all who refused were killed to make an example for any others thinking of crossing him. Raleigh was taken from her home when she was fourteen and thrown into Wynters’ compound. There, along with other children, most of them older, she was trained… in very specific tasks.”  
“What kind of tasks?” Stiles asked quickly.

Faith seemed to hesitate before answering, “Hold the phone kid. First let me get all of this out. Wynters was backed by the Guild begrudgingly so. He provided bodies to get the job done and the Guild was in over their heads too much to care where he got them. Now the way the Guild works; if there are any threats to the safety to individuals, out of touch with the normal flow of humanity, like terrorists, governments, the supernatural, etcetera they handle them. The bright side of the Guild is that they are extremely just and fair, all sides of conflicts are taken into consideration before any action is taken. And human, or non human, lives are all taken into account. But sometimes the world is better off without… some people in it.”

Damien walked back over to the table with bottles of water and passed them out as Faith took a breather and her words sunk in to the classless werewolf pack. Jackson felt his stomach sink and his heartbeat soar dangerously. With all of Raleigh’s over heard conversations, he had a faint idea of where Faith was going with this, and he didn’t like it; he felt sick inside.  
“So Raleigh served as an enslaved hired gun?” Derek asked, the Alpha never missed a beat giving Jackson a calm look.

“Basically, and trust me that bitch planned a master escape her first year there. Beautiful work, really. It all fell apart, Raleigh fell through the cracks but it almost killed her best friend. Constant and her brother managed to get away but Raleigh was still stuck with no way out. Her last two years at the compound she played good little soldier. A few months ago, however, Wynters was murdered. And good riddance.” Faith said knocking back a shot of whiskey Damien had brought her.

“After his unfortunate demise, everyone who worked for Wynters was taken into the Guild. Their freedom was granted but they were all encouraged to keep up the work. Most of the involuntary workers had been there for years and had no clue how to take care of themselves, like Raleigh for example. She is living here on a reserve duty, she’s only called in under emergencies when we need her. Other than that she lives a sweet life loaded down with money, because that’s the only way the Guild knows how to say sorry.”  
“So Raleigh is an assassin?” Jackson growled out.

“Raleigh saves lives, Jackson, it’s not a glamorous job but you have no idea where the world would be right now without people like her, people like me.” The woman bit back harshly, “You should be more sympathetic towards her. Raleigh’s parents were killed two months after she was taken away because they tried to expose Wynters. She has no one but her friends, and most of them are dead. Three days ago Raleigh was ready to leave this town and work full time in the field.”

Faith’s words rang repeatedly in Jackson’s head. Raleigh had been planning on leaving Beacon Hills, “Why?” He croaked out, his voice unsure.  
Faith sighed as if the weight of the world was a normal feeling to her, “You have to understand Raleigh is very fragile right now, and this is the third placement she’s had. She misses her version of normalcy and her friends, she doesn’t want to be alone. I convinced her to come back and give things another shot, but she’ll need your help.” Faith’s tone turned serious, “I’m not saying it’ll be easy for any of you, but I’ll die before I see Raleigh turn out like me, she deserves better than that.”

“What are we supposed to do?” Jackson asked hesitantly, Faith’s words weighing him down.  
She shrugged before continuing, “Be her friend, be her Mate and all that entails.”  
Jackson winced internally as Allison, Scott and Lydia whipped their heads around towards him with questioning looks.  
Faith stood slowly, “Now any more questions, comments or general complaints?”  
The pack of werewolves kept silent and Damien handed his wife a small stack of papers.

“All right, well.” She placed the papers in front of Derek, “This is a rough outline of the terms and conditions that both parties will be held to, see anything you disagree with or want to add make a note and we’ll fix it at the meeting.” Faith held her hand out, “It was a pleasure to meet you and your pack, Mr. Hale. And welcome to the family.”  
Derek took the woman’s hand and shook it firmly, “Thank you, I appreciate your help.”  
Faith shrugged, “As a hunter myself and on behalf of them everywhere, I apologize for the Argents’ wrong doings. And don’t worry; this bar is very supernatural friendly, so stay eat, drink, enjoy the ambiance. Now if you’ll all excuse me, I have to go inform Raleigh of all your wolfy business, deuces.”

The rag tag pack watched as Damien and Faith walked away from the table and Jackson didn’t think it could get any quieter.  
“So…” Stiles dragged out, “That was interesting.”  
Lydia turned to Jackson, “Raleigh is your Mate?”  
“Yeah.” He snapped at her, “What’s it to you?”  
The girl rolled her eyes uninterested, “Like I care.”

Jackson clenched his jaw even harder. His Mate was a professional killer? Jackson didn’t quite know how to deal with that. Although that did explain why Raleigh was such a good fighter, and the gunshot wound on her shoulder as well as her current injuries. His chest seized up in panic. Raleigh had been forced to kill people, had been trapped for years in a hell hole. Jackson slammed his fist down onto the wooden table in rage.  
Derek flashed his red eyes as the rest of the wolf pack was startled by his actions. “Calm down, Jackson.”  
“How the hell am I supposed to do that Derek?”

The Alpha leaned forward taking his arm away from Stiles, “Be happy that Raleigh being here has solved all of our problems. Your Mate is a good person, and you should be thankful for that.”  
Jackson growled lowering his eyes reluctantly to his Alpha.   
“So what do we do now Derek?” Scott asked while comforting Allison.  
“I want everyone to meet at my house tomorrow, eleven thirty in the morning. And I want all of you to wait for me there until I get back with Faith, okay?”  
The pack quietly nodded and trickled out of the booth. Jackson found himself walking quickly up to his Porsche but as soon as he got there he stopped. Staring back into his own reflection he thought about his Mate, until Lydia walked up behind him.

“Jackson?”  
“What?” He asked without looking at her through clenched teeth.  
Lydia cleared her throat innocently, “I just wanted to say that… I’m happy that you found your Mate.”  
Jackson sighed turning around, “Thanks, I uh, didn’t mean to…”  
Lydia smiled shaking her head, “Don’t worry about it.” She looked down before taking a step forward, wrapping her arms loosely around Jackson.

Jackson smiled hugging Lydia back, “I’ll see you tomorrow huh?”  
Lydia pulled back returning his smile, “Yeah.”  
Jackson watched as Lydia got into her own car and drove off. He really had been a dick to her. He briefly wondered about stopping by Raleigh’s apartment before going on, then he remembered what Faith had said… maybe not. Jackson wasn’t sure he wanted to be there when his Mate found out that he had been lying to her too. That might not be pretty.   
Less than twenty minutes later Jackson was walking into his house to see his mother waiting for him, “Hey, honey, where have you been?”

“Coach had a late practice.”  
His mother tilted her head knowingly, “On a Saturday?”  
Jackson shrugged, “He wants to make sure we stay in shape during the off season.”

The woman nodded and sighed, “All right honey, are you going to want dinner?”  
Jackson shook his head making a break for his room, “I, uh, ate with Danny. And I’ve got some homework so…”  
“I love you honey.” His adoptive mother’s voice sounded right as Jackson closed his door kicking his shoes off.  
He sighed and leaned against his door. Jackson should probably feel bad about blowing her off for the past few weeks. But he didn’t. Jackson knew that he had issues, hell anyone who spent long periods of time around him knew he had problems. Jackson rolled his eyes and threw his back pack onto his desk, he was not going there, not tonight. Besides he had way too much homework in Harris’ class it wasn’t even funny.

“This is such bullshit.” He muttered pulling his books out. How had Jackson fallen to this level? He’d stopped asking himself that a long time ago, but he felt like he might be transferring to a different level; whether it was up or down he didn’t know. Jackson slowly realized how pathetic he was, thinking about what he would have done if Raleigh had really left Beacon Hills, left him. The small, gentle affection that Raleigh gave him was unreal and like nothing he’d ever felt before. It was the way she smiled at him, like she meant it. 

And there was something about her scent, it reminded him of something… something just out of Jackson’s reach that prevented him from recognizing it. But he was addicted to the feelings she put inside of him and Jackson wanted, needed more of it. He stripped off his jacket and his shoes tossing them over his head before reluctantly starting his work. His life was severely screwed beyond belief, and he hated himself for it. Jackson glanced at his cell phone. 8:23.  
He sighed heavily scrubbing his face with his hands, Jackson also hated chemistry. Why the hell did he even need this shit?


	10. Chapter 10

Raleigh glanced around the sidewalks of the dark cul de sac. Clearing her throat she hopped the fence around the Whittemore’s backyard with practiced ease. As her feet hit the ground she smirked and shouldered her messenger bag, keeping low and out of sight. It always fascinated Raleigh that the G.P. actually thought that fences and locks on windows kept them safe.  
“Yeah right, dumbasses.” She muttered under her breath.

Raleigh knew everything now, Faith never had been one to leave out the details. So Jackson was a werewolf… and Scott, Lydia and Derek. And the dog that had cornered her in the alley… Derek, the pack had thought she was a spy. Which was understandable, considering.  
Raleigh knew a little about werewolves, but Derek had been the first she’s actually seen transformed. Damien had never turned in front of her before, but Faith had assured her that he was fierce. Raleigh knew that werewolves had sharpened hearing and smell, as well as fast healing and an ability to hone in on people’s feelings.  
The only thing that made Raleigh feel uncomfortable about the whole situation was all the things she had said and felt around Jackson… awkward. However, nothing was going to be more awkward than this next conversation with Jackson. 

Raleigh did feel a little disappointed though, this was the first time that her cover had been blown to the G.P. Something that she had been proud of, stupid werewolves and their ability to be a walking lie detector. But everything was out in the open now and everything was going to be okay. Raleigh just had to see how Jackson was taking this whole thing. Faith had also informed her that she was Jackson’s Mate.  
Not that she knew much about what a Mate was in werewolf terms, but she knew that Damien and Faith were Mates. And Raleigh had always thought that they were made for each other. It also explained why Raleigh had taken so fast to Jackson, and vise versa. Love was in the air, Cupid’s arrow… all that bullshit.

It still astounded Raleigh how it all worked. She had never felt… whatever it was that Jackson made her feel. It scared her to an extent, Raleigh had still been an immature child during all the time she had taken advantage of with her parents. She’d never realized how much they meant to her until they were dead. And for the past almost four years Raleigh had made it a point to be emotionally unavailable to just about everyone she met. Sasha and Harkess had been the only people she’d spoken to after Constant’s over exaggerated death two years ago.

Raleigh strode through the Whittemore’s backyard, carefully avoiding every lightened window, she quickly found Jackson’s room. Approaching it slowly knowing that he might have already heard her heartbeat or her voice. She smiled when she saw Jackson asleep at his desk in front of the window, his school books were open in front of him, his head propped up on his arm. Wow, he was adorably hot twenty four seven wasn’t he?

Raleigh reached forward and tapped lightly on the window. She grinned when Jackson jerked awake looking up at her. Raleigh bit her lip nervously and waved weakly at him, “Hey.”  
Jackson’s eyes were wide, he stared at her for a few seconds too long and jumped up opening the window for her, taking a few steps back. Raleigh expertly ducked into the room, trying not to get anything on Jackson’s desk and closed the window behind her. She looked back to Jackson who was still silent and staring.  
“So…” Raleigh started, throwing her right fist into her left open hand, “You know who I am.”  
“Yeah.”  
Jackson’s tight lip hurt Raleigh a little more than it should have.  
“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you, but I, I had to lie.”

Jackson nodded but Raleigh could tell by his body language he wasn’t comfortable at the moment, “It’s fine, I understand.”  
She sighed putting her hand on her hip, “Could you please stop acting like that?”  
“Like what?”  
“Like you’re afraid of me.” Raleigh blurted holding Jackson’s eyes.  
He smirked and shrugged taking a few steps toward her, “I’m not afraid of you, trust me.”

Raleigh took a step back keeping her tone deadly serious, “Well, you’re something of me, I can tell. You’re not the only one with enhanced abilities, mine were just trained into me.”  
Jackson’s face fell blank, “So Faith told you everything too, huh?”  
She crossed her arms, “Yes, now let’s just both admit that we lied to each other and get over it.”  
Jackson shrugged and smiled nonchalantly, “I don’t have a problem with it.”  
“You obviously do Jackson, I’m not an idiot!” Raleigh’s hurt was plain on her face, “The way you’re standing, talking, you’re uncomfortable. I see it.”

Jackson sneered, “It’s not like that!”  
Raleigh shook her head ducking her eyes to the ground, “That’s not good enough.” She sighed both of them refusing to speak for a painfully long time. “This was a mistake, I should go.”   
When Raleigh turned back towards the window Jackson cut her off, throwing his arm into her way. She shot him back a dangerous look. Jackson gritted his teeth and closed his eyes in frustration, “It’s just I know how you felt, in that compound. I… I was forced to do things that I didn’t want to do.”  
She nodded, “Yeah, I know all about the Kanima, and Matt and Gerard.”  
Jackson’s face turned angry and he growled at the names of his former masters, “I know how it feels to kill when you don’t want to, it makes me sick to think about what I did. And to know that’s what you feel like, it-”

“Whoa wait.” Raleigh stopped him, “I am not ashamed of what I do. The only thing I regret is doing it for the man who destroyed my family. I have never killed someone who didn’t deserve it, I swear.” She looked back into Jackson’s hazel eyes, “And I know you can tell that’s the truth.”  
They stared at each other for a few seconds until Jackson broke, “I know.”  
Raleigh took a step into Jackson’s personal space, “Jackson you can’t hold yourself responsible for something you had no control over.”   
He shook his head, “I could have been stronger than them.”

“No, you couldn’t have.” Raleigh replied quietly, “I’m not saying I went stalker on you, but I definitely checked you out and, no offense, but you’re too hard on yourself. You’re constantly driving for perfection that isn’t there. And you can’t do that. You don’t need to prove anything to the people who care about you.”  
Jackson rolled his eyes and looked away from her.  
“Jackson you have a pack, a place where you’re accepted, you have Danny who is a good and understanding friend. Plus you have two parents who love you.”  
Jackson scoffed, “They’re not my parents.”

It was Raleigh’s turn to roll her eyes, “How can you think that? Just because they’re not your flesh and blood doesn’t make them any less your family.”  
“They just appease me, they don’t care. Every time they look at me they regret adopting me, I’m a failure.” Jackson spoke quietly with pain in his voice.  
“Jackson your parents chose you to be their son, have you ever thought of that?” Raleigh asked desperately. Yeah, Raleigh could see how they could be Mates. They were both so broken, but maybe they could fix each other. “And I’m sure you don’t exactly make it easy for them either.”  
Jackson smirked through his hurt, looking up at Raleigh from the floor, “What’s in the bag?”

“Nothing.” Raleigh answered too quickly without thinking.  
Jackson raised his eye brow and Raleigh winced. Werewolf super powers, he could totally tell that Raleigh just lied. She sucked in a breath and tried it again, “I-I just meant I brought it because… well okay so Faith told me that we’re Mates and when Argent takes the deal I’m going to have to leave for a little while so she told me to bring over stuff that… smelled like me.”  
Raleigh watched Jackson’s face nervously for any sign that his brain was processing everything she’d just let out. After a few seconds he looked back up to her in confusion, “You’re leaving?”

She rolled her eyes, that would be what he thought about first, “Just for two weeks, since I’m going to be living here I have to make sure that Derek and Argent keep the peace. So Faith is taking me to Minnesota, there’s a werewolf village in the middle of the nowhere; they’re going to teach me everything I’ll need to know about werewolves.” Raleigh removed the bag placing it on Jackson’s desk.  
Jackson stayed quiet and nodded, the tension between them seemed to grow, “So you’re okay with us… being Mates?”  
Raleigh tried to hide her blush by averting her eyes, “Yeah, uh, I guess I mean we’re both, you know young and stuff but, um, yeah I’m definitely okay with it.”  
She could tell that Jackson’s mood improved immensely when he smirked back at her taking a step forward. Raleigh swallowed, she felt a little uncomfortable under his intense gaze and she wagged her finger, 

“Oh, no, don’t do that.”  
“Do what?” Jackson asked in a rough voice.  
“That thing with your face and your eyes. That’s cheating.” Raleigh said suppressing a shiver when Jackson ran his fingers gently down her bare arm.  
“Do you want me to stop?”  
Raleigh looked back up into Jackson’s eyes and shook her head, “Nope.”

Less than a second later Jackson’s lips were on hers and Raleigh was dragging her nails roughly through his hair. She gripped his shoulders, jumping up and wrapping her legs around Jackson, while his hands cupped her ass. Raleigh barely noticed that Jackson had walked them over to his bed. She broke the kiss as Jackson held her over the bed, “There’s just one thing.”  
He smirked again, Raleigh was beginning to think that Jackson knew just how much it affected her, “Of course there is.”  
Raleigh gulped, “It’s just… I’ve never done this before.”  
“I know.”

Raleigh gave Jackson a questioning look until she realized something and gasped, “The alley.” He nodded cockily, and Raleigh covered her mouth with her hand, “Oh, God that is completely humiliating.”  
Jackson laid her down gently on the bed standing over her, wearing what had to be the sexiest look on his face, “Don’t worry, I’m going to make you feel amazing.”  
The air in Raleigh’s lungs escaped and she felt heat rolling off her skin. Hell fucking yes! She cleared her throat casually trying to cover up her giddiness, “Well, if you insist.”  
Jackson smiled again stripping off his t shirt as Raleigh sat up, her fingers fumbling with her laces as she kicked off her boots and ripped her socks off throwing them behind her and off the bed. She then took her own tank top off and tossed it at Jackson’s head, scooting up on the bed. Her heart jumped when Jackson lowered himself on the bed straddling her waist, his hands on her stomach and his mouth on her neck.

“I’ve wanted this for so long.” He whispered into her skin, planting wet kisses along her collar bone. Raleigh just moaned, with Jackson finally touching her it was overloading her senses. All she could do was drag her nails up and down Jackson’s back encouraging him on. When his kisses trailed down to her stomach, she gasped and arched her back as Jackson roughly unbuttoned her jeans ripping them off of her.  
When Jackson looked back he seemed transfixed by Raleigh, he traced her curves with his hands so gently, like he must have thought she was breakable. She smiled through the lust filled haze of her mind, reaching behind her to unhook her bra sending to into the direction of her boots. Jackson growled deeply in his throat before covering Raleigh with his body, grinding down onto her. His mouth went immediately to her breasts, hungrily sucking and licking both of them while Raleigh writhed underneath him making some pretty embarrassing sounds.

Raleigh’s hands trailed down Jackson’s sides, making for his fly she fumbled with it for a few seconds before tearing his jeans open and pushing them down. Jackson seemed to get the hint and finished Raleigh’s job for her. Now they were flush together, skin on skin, just their underwear separating them. She could feel Jackson’s hard on pressing into her thigh, making her gasp quietly. Jackson kissed her hard, licking into her mouth and Raleigh moaned like a whore when Jackson’s hands went for the top of her black boy shorts.  
Suddenly he stopped and pulled back from the kiss looking down at Raleigh’s pelvis, “What is that?”

Raleigh bit her lip as she felt Jackson’s fingers gently run over her scars experimentally. With the little light coming through the window and from the lamp on Jackson’s desk it was easy to make out the long, surgical horizontal scar right above her panties and the ugly smaller scars that surrounded it. “I spent two months in Afghanistan a while back, IED went off and I got hit with a little bit of shrapnel.” She said quietly, choosing her next words carefully because she knew how werewolf Mates could get, Damien as her example, “They had to do emergency surgery and take a few things out.”  
Raleigh gasped as Jackson’s eyes glowed a bright blue, felt his claws grow caressing the scarred skin. But what surprised her the most were Jackson’s canines, he looked down at her with a suppressed anger and gently asked, “Take what out?”

Raleigh shrugged trying to downplay the situation, “Just some stuff…” Jackson growled, his breath ghosting over her scars. “That makes it possible for me to… reproduce.”  
Jackson growled again, but deeper this time. He nuzzled her lower abdomen, licking the already healed wound instinctively before looking up at her, “No pups?” He asked in a voice that didn’t really sound like Jackson making Raleigh realize that she was talking to his wolf.

Her eyes watered slightly and she felt a sinking feeling in her chest at the disappointment in Jackson’s, and his wolf’s, voice. He sounded so hurt and broken and it killed her, but she refused to let any tears escape. She reached down and pulled him back to her face, “The same thing happened to Faith’s half sister, she went to a Healer in New York. And her son just turned two.” Raleigh said gently with a half smile before kissing him. Which was a little difficult with Jackson transformed but after a minute he reverted back to his human form and stared at Raleigh.  
“I think I love you.” He whispered in awe as if such a thing had before been thought impossible.  
Raleigh smiled back, “I hope you do, ‘cause I think I love you too.”

Jackson smirked again as his hands moved down the half inch to Raleigh’s underwear sliding them off gently as she did the same to his boxers. They kissed hard fighting for dominance with their tongues as Jackson slid a finger into her. Raleigh gasped into his mouth and her nails sunk into his shoulders. She was already so wet, and ready and she wanted him now. “Jackson please.” She begged greedily.  
He laughed and moved his mouth down to her throat where he teased with his teeth, “I don’t want to hurt you.”  
Raleigh groaned and gasped as a second finger entered her, she pushed down on it making her Mate growl, “Jackson I swear to God, if you don’t put your penis inside of me right now, I will kill you!”  
Jackson scoffed pulling back from her neck where a mark was blooming to look into her eyes, “You’re bossy.”

“And you’re killing me.” Raleigh snapped back licking a stripe up the center of Jackson’s neck.  
When Jackson groaned brokenly Raleigh knew she had won, her body was on fire in a way it had never been before and she desperately needed release. He lined up his cock and looked up at Raleigh, “Are you ready?”  
She rolled her eyes, “I’ve been ready for the past twenty minutes.”  
Jackson smiled and captured her lips before pushing into Raleigh slowly, swallowing her gasps and moans. When he was buried completely Jackson went still and nibbled on Raleigh’s lips. Her eyes fluttered closed and she sighed, Raleigh felt full like Jackson’s body had been made specifically just for hers. And when she rolled her hips experimentally Jackson groaned, his hips answered automatically stuttering up, shallowly thrusting deeper into her.

Raleigh felt drunk as she rolled her hips again, “Move.” She commanded breathily. Jackson got the idea, pulling out and pushing back inside hard making her whole body tingle with pleasure like an electric surge was going through her. “Fuck.” Raleigh gasped out as Jackson started fucking her with a rhythm.   
Jackson carded his fingers through Raleigh’s hair pulling her head back, exposing her neck. She held onto his wide muscular shoulders as he gently mouthed and licked where her neck and shoulder met, “You’re so tight.” He gasped before biting down hard.

That set her orgasm off, Raleigh half moaned and half gasped loudly, coming hard and unexpectedly. She felt Jackson groan trying to hold himself back from the edge, which only made him bite down harder. Raleigh was literally seeing stars and she drug her nails down Jackson’s back. She had never come that hard before, ever.  
“You okay?” She heard Jackson ask as she rolled her head to the side.  
“You bit me.” Raleigh muttered through the pleasure, “Don’t stop.”  
Raleigh could practically hear Jackson smirking when he snaked one hand to her hip, holding her down securely. His other hand kneaded her breast teasing her nipple while he kissed her claiming her mouth as his, thrusting inside of her without caution. Raleigh wrapped her legs around Jackson’s waist and ran her hands down his sweat slick back, urging him on, “Harder!”

Jackson groaned again, “Fuck, Raleigh.” He fucked her hard and earnestly into the mattress, making Raleigh moan from every thrust, “God Raleigh, I’m never letting you go. You’re Mine, understand? Mine.” He growled.  
She nodded through half lidded eyes, she could feel her orgasm closing in on her, “Yours Jackson.” She said looking up at him as his eyes turned blue again, she felt his claws pressing into her skin. He leaned down biting her almost gently with his canines making her whine desperately, “Only yours.”

“Only for me.” Jackson repeated in an authoritative tone, never breaking the rhythm he built. They came together a few thrusts later. Jackson buried his face into Raleigh’s neck and she dug her nails into Jackson’s back so deep, she was sure she broke the skin. He filled her up and they both gasped and moaned, laying there as they both came down from their high slowly.

Jackson finally stirred peeling their sweaty skin apart, he pulled out of her and rolled over onto his back panting slightly.  
Raleigh spoke first, “Wow,” She huffed out in a breath, “That was…”  
“Yeah.” Jackson filled in as their fingers tangled into a grasp. “Amazing.”  
Raleigh laughed and rolled onto her side, lightly running her fingers over Jackson’s muscular chest, “Can we do it again?”

Jackson opened his eyes to see Raleigh’s smiling face. She had a few marks on her neck and down her chest, he eyed the bite with pride. Jackson had marked her and finally claimed her, she was his now. He smiled up at her, breathing in her scent and it finally hit him. Raleigh’s scent had always made him think of something that he didn’t quite know what it was, but he knew now. It was home, it was safety, maybe even love. All of those things were something that Jackson knew little about, but he wanted to learn.  
He snaked his arm up Raleigh’s back pulling her in for a short kiss, Jackson licked the bite and whispered, “Whatever you want.”  
Raleigh smiled again, straddling Jackson’s hips and slowly lowered herself onto his once again hard cock. Jackson’s lungs emptied themselves of oxygen and his vision swam. Raleigh was so warm and tight and everything he needed.

She took his hands and settled them on her hips, “Show me how.”  
And he did. Their movements were slow and sensual, as Jackson lead Raleigh with his hands. He showed her everything that made his cock twitch. Raleigh rolled and pivoted her hips, sliding up and down Jackson as he thrusted upwards. She leaned over him kissing Jackson slowly until neither of them could breathe, Jackson slid his hands around to Raleigh’s back and kneaded her ass making her moan.  
He felt a little strange, Jackson didn’t usually have slow sex; it was too intimate for his liking. It was always quick and hard and rough. But with Raleigh, she looked at Jackson like he was precious, something to be praised and loved. He slowly realized that was what he had been missing all his life, that feeling like someone else truly cared about him. Jackson’s chest tightened and his hands ghosted up Raleigh’s back as she moaned and tilted her head back.

So he didn’t know what love felt like, given or received, but Jackson knew without a shadow of a doubt that Raleigh was radiating love. And the suffocating, painfully sweet feeling in his chest made Jackson think that he was burning with love too. He liked this feeling, never wanted it to go away; never wanted Raleigh to go away, “I do love you.” He decided.  
Jackson’s Mate stopped moving and looked down at him. Raleigh smiled and Jackson reached up to cup her face when he saw her blink back traitorous tears, “Really?”  
Jackson nodded firmly, “I know it.”

Raleigh leaned down again, laying across his body, kissing Jackson hard and hungrily. She pulled back and whispered in his ear, “I love you too, Jackson.” Truth.  
Jackson wrapped his arms around her and rolled over easily, giving Raleigh slow but hard thrusts. She whimpered high and busied herself with biting and licking all along Jackson’s chest. He groaned deeply realizing that he was close again, making Jackson plunge into his Mate in abandon. He took Raleigh by the chin and silenced her moans by swallowing them, Jackson kissed her passionately and hard. The only thing he could think was Mine over and over in his head like a prayer.

The two came together again less than a minute later and this time Jackson blacked out for a few seconds. His eyes fluttered open, he was still inside of Raleigh; she was stroking his hair tenderly. Jackson pulled out of Raleigh and pulled her up the bed, tucking her under the covers and pulling her close. She smiled up at him through lidded eyes, “Thanks.” She whispered.  
Jackson kissed her forehead right above her bandage and held her close, watching her peaceful face. It looked like most of her injuries would be healed up by morning, but Jackson licked them all again getting small amused huffs out of his Mate. Even after Raleigh had fallen asleep he watched her. Jackson just couldn’t believe he had her. Raleigh was his and he hers. She made Jackson feel like he was someone, someone who mattered, “I love you Raleigh.” He breathed out in his last conscience thought.

That night he dreamed of Raleigh smiling at him, the sounds of children giggling and a sweet gentle voice calling him Daddy… 

 

Deep Voiced Announcer Guy VO: Meanwhile back at Raleigh’s apartment…

Damien glanced at his phone that read 12:06. He sighed and walked into the kitchen, behind his wife who was sitting at the table in front of a laptop staring intently. “It’s late Faith and you didn’t sleep last night, come to bed.”

Faith sighed, her eyes never leaving the laptop, “I just want to finish this paragraph, gotta make sure it’s all good.”  
Damien reached past Faith and closed the computer and quickly started massaging her back so she wouldn’t protest. “You need to sleep. You’re about to go off with Raleigh for two weeks to train her and I know you won’t sleep then.”  
His wife moaned and her head fell forward, “Fine you win, cheater.”

Damien smiled and easily picked up his Mate bridal style and carried her into Raleigh’s guest room, “It’s not cheating if it’s good for your health.”  
Faith mumbled something as Damien tucked her in and kissed her forehead.  
“Sweet dreams, babe.” He said before leaning back up, as he did Faith’s hand shot up suddenly grabbing him by the collar and opened her eyes. “Do you remember when you told me I was your Mate?”  
Damien smirked and his eyes glowed their usual dark violet, “Yes, I remember. You punched me in the face and cussed a blue streak. Destiny and Trinity just laughed.”

Faith smiled sleepily but Damien could see the hurt in her eyes as Faith was reminded of her fallen sister, “Mhmm, the good old days.”  
Damien removed his wife’s clenched hand from his collar and laid it down on her stomach as he sat by Faith, “I have no doubt that Jackson and Raleigh are going to be fine.”  
Faith frowned in a way he knew all too well, “Things get worse before they get better, we know that.”  
“Do you really think Jackson will struggle being away from her?”  
Faith sighed heavily, “I don’t know, he might be fine or he might go crazy. Or he could cope well, I don’t know.”

Damien gripped his wife’s hand, assuringly, “Go to sleep Faith.”  
“I love you Damien.”  
He grinned back at Faith, “I love you too.”  
Faith closed her eyes and rolled onto her side as Damien walked out turning off the lights. He poured himself a glass of whiskey and sat down in front of Faith’s laptop, opening it. He started at the top of page eighty, Faith had almost been done with the contract, Damien could probably join his wife in another hour.


	11. Chapter 11

At 8:00 Sunday morning Jackson and Raleigh had been sleeping peacefully; Jackson’s hand loosely holding her waist, both of their hands stretched under the pillows clinging tightly. When suddenly, and loudly,   
Raleigh’s phone started playing the chorus to Charlie by The Red Hot Chili Peppers.

So much more than, Charlie’s waking me. To my core and Charlie’s shaking me.

The Mates both jerked awake and turned towards the sound of the music. Jackson groaned and reached out, grabbing the bottoms of Raleigh’s jeans. He pulled the clothing closer and swiped the phone from the right back pocket, apparently someone named Charlie was calling. Raleigh grimaced and plucked the phone from his hand.

“So’ry, I have to take this.” She yawned putting the phone to her ear, “What’s up?”  
Jackson heard the sound of a man laughing, “Raleigh what’s up?”  
“Eight in the goddamn morning, which is too early for bullshit, what’s up?” Raleigh grouched back rolling her eyes at Jackson.

“Oh, sorry, I’m in Uruguay. So you’re a werewolf’s Mate huh?” Charlie said through the phone.  
Raleigh scoffed, “Everyone knows now?” Jackson was starting to get annoyed, he didn’t want Raleigh talking so some other guy first thing in the morning. Not when Jackson was half hard and eyeing his Mate hungrily. He leaned over to her, running his hands over Raleigh’s lower abdomen and she gasped low.

“Nah, it was in the report. Actually I was calling because I can probably give you a list of people who can help you with, you know the kid problem.”  
Jackson raised and eye brow and wetly kissed Raleigh’s shoulder who said, “Wow, I never knew my inability to procreate was a problem.”  
Charlie laughed sharply, “Well, you know how werewolves are, they would knock up the trees they piss on if they could.”  
Raleigh laughed and covered her mouth quickly with her free hand and Jackson growled taking the phone from his Mate he said, “Sorry Raleigh’s very busy this morning not getting knocked up by her Mate.” He promptly ended the call and held the phone out of Raleigh’s reach.

“Oh come on!” Raleigh squealed grabbing for her phone.  
Jackson smiled mischievously, “You come on.” Raleigh laughed and rolled her eyes and leaned into his lips. Jackson deepened the kiss, licking into Raleigh’s mouth teasing her tongue, making her moan. He growled into his Mate’s mouth, frustrated when her phone began playing Captain Jack by Billy Joel. 

Captain Jack will get you high tonight. And take you to your special island.

Raleigh broke the kiss and Jackson glared at her, “I have to, it could be an emergency.”  
Jackson sighed and gave her back the phone and went back to sucking on Raleigh’s neck, “Hey Jack what’s up?”  
“Nothing much Raleigh. I just read the message from Faith, the possible werewolf thing turned out to be an actual werewolf thing. And one of them is your Mate?”

“Yes, this is true.” Raleigh said controlling her voice expertly while Jackson feasted on her neck.  
Jack cleared his throat, “Well, I was just calling to say, uh, do you remember Faith’s older half sister? Because she was shot and the docs had to take out her uterus, but she went to a Healer in New York. She has a son now and they’re trying for a second.”  
Jackson’s mouth moved up to Raleigh’s ear, nibbling making her reply strangled, “Y-Yeah, I know that.”

“Oh, okay.” Jack laughed, “And I mean her kid is healthy too, I promise, I see him all the time. I can send you her-”  
Raleigh bit her lip, “YeahIbeleiveyousorrygottago.”  
Jackson had never heard anyone speak so fast, except maybe Stiles. He watched as Raleigh hung up pressing her mouth to his and dropping the phone onto the bed. “Mhm, so… good morning.” She whispered in his mouth, her hand acknowledging the boy’s hard on.

Jackson smirked putting his nose in the crook of Raleigh’s neck, inhaling deeply, “Good morning me.”  
Raleigh grinned and trailed her fingers softly over Jackson’s back before she gasped, “Hey, let’s have shower sex!”  
Jackson laughed letting go of his Mate. Raleigh giggled crawling over Jackson to get to the bathroom, he smirked and slapped her ass a little harder than necessary. Raleigh bucked on her hands and knees, and stilled, “Don’t do that.”

“Wh-” Jackson’s nose twitched suddenly, smelling the sudden deep arousal from Raleigh. His Mate jumped off the bed and ran into the bathroom, “It’s cheating!” She laughed.  
Jackson’s smirk grew as he climbed out of the bed and after his Mate, it was going to be a very good morning.  
When Jackson walked into his bathroom Raleigh was leaning over close to the mirror, gingerly taking off the bandage above her eyebrow. He smiled warmly turning on the bathroom radio and turned the volume up as it blasted alternative rock. Jackson sauntered up behind her planting wet kisses onto his Mate’s shoulder.

“It didn’t scar.” Raleigh said rubbing her forehead, “Lucky me.”  
Jackson stared at Raleigh’s reflection as his hands slid down her back kneading her ass making Raleigh emit a choked off moan. “Yes,” He mused, “Lucky you.”  
Jackson reared back and slapped her flesh hard. He smirked when Raleigh jumped letting out a high pitched gasp. Jackson smacked her again and rubbed the rapidly reddening skin that was hot to the touch. Raleigh leaned into his hands, bracing herself against the counter, her hands shaking against the edge. Jackson saw how she was biting her lip and had her eyes screwed shut; he could smell her need and he was all too happy to give, “Someone has kinks.” Smack! Smack!

Raleigh whined high pitched cracking her eyes open, “S’na fair.”  
Jackson hit Raleigh again, enjoying the stinging in the palm of his hand. He leaned close to his Mate’s ear, “What makes you think I would play fair?” Smack!  
Raleigh groaned loud letting her head connect with the cool porcelain, “Oh my God, how do you do that?”  
Smack! “Do what?” Jackson asked licking the outer shell of Raleigh’s ear, feeling her body tremble against his. His cock was fully hard now and leaking, straining for his Mate. But Jackson wanted to play. Smack!

“Sound like sex on two fucking legs!” Raleigh screamed.  
Jackson smirked cockily, he felt her lean even harder on the counter top; her knees showing signs of giving out. He guided his free hand in between Raleigh’s legs feeling her slick and warm entrance. Smack! Smack!  
Raleigh whined again, “Jackson please!” She let out a strangled, needy sob.  
He ginned, his fingers sliding up over Raleigh’s clit. Smack! “Please what?”

“You know what!”  
Smack! Jackson spanked Raleigh harder than he should have, “I’m sorry you’ll have to be more specific.” Smack!  
He watched as Raleigh lifted her head up defiantly and looked at him through the mirror. “I need you to fuck me now!” Jackson smirked raising his eyebrow, “Specific enough for you?”  
Jackson growled roughly, manhandling Raleigh by her hips he plunged into his Mate. He snapped his jaw closed as he watched Raleigh bite her lip and suppress a loud moan. Smack! “Goddamn Jackson!” She screamed her entire body shaking.

Jackson placed one hand at the small of her back and leaned over to Raleigh’s ear fucking deep into her, “Figured you liked it rough.” Smack! “Looked like the type.” Smack!  
Raleigh dropped her head back down to the counter with a thud, pushing back against Jackson’s thrusts, “Ughh, my God!” Jackson could feel the heat rolling off of Raleigh’s body, smell the stark arousal and sweat in the air, he could hear both of their elevated heartbeats; hear every gasp and groan coming from both of their mouths. Fortunately though the music from the radio drowned them out just enough that Jackson knew his parents would not hear them, no matter how loud they got.

Never stopping his rough rhythm on Raleigh, Jackson covered his Mate’s hands with his own. He leaned his head down to her neck, biting and sucking up towards the back of Raleigh’s ear where he licked the outer shell sinuously before biting down harshly. Smack!   
Jackson smiled when he heard Raleigh gasp through gritted teeth and full on mewled desperately, “Fuck Jackson!”  
He growled, ramming into his Mate harder. Jackson could feel that they were about to lose it, both slipping close to the edge. “Raleigh.” He gasped out in between thrusts. Jackson didn’t know how he was still standing or moving, being with Raleigh like this was so intense. His head felt euphoric and dazed and oh so right. 

Jackson grabbed Raleigh by the back of her neck and pulled her lips to his. He heard his Mate moan and felt Raleigh kiss him back with need and determination. When Raleigh’s tongue slipped into his mouth, Jackson’s hips stuttered and he groaned deeply into his Mate’s open mouth. Raleigh came first, her orgasm triggering Jackson’s and as they came down from their high Jackson and Raleigh found themselves laying on the tile floor both panting and gasping.

Jackson was on his back, the tile underneath him welcomingly cool against his hot skin. He heard Raleigh start to giggle and he looked to where she was only inches away.  
“Wasn’t that supposed to be in the shower?” She asked with a tired grin.  
Jackson rolled his eyes and rolled onto his side pecking a kiss to Raleigh’s lips, “You really want to be picky after what we just did?”  
Raleigh smiled grabbing him by the chin, “Do you hear me complaining?” Raleigh slowly leaned into Jackson kissing him deeply and slowly like they had all the time in the world. “Shower time?” She asked after a few minutes on the floor.

Jackson smiled and helped Raleigh up, they both climbed into Jackson’s oversized shower. Raleigh turned the water on and quickly got to work showering. He smirked at her as Raleigh handed him his shampoo but when Jackson tried to help wash Raleigh’s hair she swatted his hands away and looked at him; like she never had before.   
It was only for a split second but Jackson felt like Raleigh had cut him off, like she was withholding herself. It didn’t feel like Raleigh had pushed Jackson away but like she had recoiled away from him which made Jackson frown.

“Are you okay?” Raleigh asked with a raised eyebrow while she rinsed her hair.  
Jackson shrugged and started washing his body, “It’s nothing.”  
Raleigh gave him a warm smile and kissed his cheek, “You sure?”  
Jackson nodded, “Yeah.”

His Mate seemed to take the answer and quickly back to showering. Jackson didn’t quite understand what he had felt, although the feeling had quickly passed but it felt… painful. And he didn’t like it. He decided that he was just being paranoid or that maybe he had just imagined it.  
Jackson looked back to Raleigh, he had never seen anyone shower as quickly as her, because she was already rinsing her body off of Jackson’s soap. She gave him a quick wink before she stepped out leaving him alone. Yeah he must have imagined it.

By the time Jackson got out of the shower and was walking into his room with a towel around his waist, Raleigh was dressed minus a shirt and going through the messenger bag on his desk. Jackson could feel Raleigh’s eyes on him as he dropped the towel and pulled on boxers and a pair of jeans. He looked back over to his Mate and saw that she was raking her eyes over his body.  
“See anything you like?” He asked walking over to the desk.  
Raleigh shrugged, “Eh, it was just some really hot naked guy. No big.”  
Jackson smirked running a gentle hand up Raleigh’s throat and pulled her in for a kiss. “You might want to be careful about staring at naked guys, I hear your boyfriend is a really possessive guy.”

Raleigh smiled, “My boyfriend?”  
“Oh, yeah.” Jackson mused sitting down at his desk pulling Raleigh into his lap, “He’s fiercely protective, I hear.”  
She sighed happily, which was music Jackson’s ears, “Well thanks for telling me, I’ll have to keep that in mind.” Raleigh said smacking kisses to his lips.  
“So what’s in the bag?” Jackson asked skimming his hands all over Raleigh’s exposed skin.

Raleigh smiled, “I just brought some of my clothes, stuff with my scent on it and I… kinda brought some DVDs so you can learn more about me. It’s just som-”  
Raleigh’s cell phone cut her off suddenly blaring What Faith Can Do by Kutless.

Silent prayers get answered, broken hearts become brand new. That’s what faith can do.

Jackson watched as Raleigh groaned and reluctantly got up, trudging over to Jackson’s bed, answering the phone his Mate plopped back into his lap with a guilty look, “Hello Faith.”  
“Good morning ‘Leigh. So guess who I just got a phone call from?”  
“Who?” Raleigh asked stroking the back of Jackson’s head, giving him her full attention despite the phone.  
Jackson smiled up at her and sighed contentedly loving the way her fingers massaged the back of his neck and ruffled through his short hair.  
“Constant. She’s a little pissed about losing the bet and she wants to know when the wedding is going to be. I guess she’s a little sore about being twenty million dollars poorer. Not like she can’t spare it!” Faith said laughing.

Jackson shot Raleigh a confused look. Raleigh herself was wearing an embarrassed and shocked face staring straight at him. “Uhhh… I told you guys to stop betting on my love life!”  
Jackson smirked but kept his mouth shut. He liked the way his Mate looked when she was flustered, Jackson wrapped his arms around Raleigh and pulled her close.  
“Uh, maybe we should hold off on the wedding talk until later huh?” Raleigh said nervously.  
“Yeah, I figured as much. Now tell Jack-Jack bye because I need you over here, ASAP. Out.”  
Jackson watched as Raleigh’s face fell and slid her phone into her pocket. “I am so sorry.”

Jackson shook his head stiffly, “Don’t worry about it.”  
He watched as Raleigh jumped up frantically pulling her shirt on, “I’m really sorry, like really really sorry but…” Jackson smirked when Raleigh nearly tripped over his backpack on the floor. “I have to go.”  
Jackson stood up and steadied his Mate, “It’s fine, really. Calm down.”  
Raleigh sucked a breath in through her teeth, “Yeah, but I feel like shit just running out on you first thing.”

“Just make sure I get to see you before you leave.” He said pushing red hair out of Raleigh’s face. “Okay?”  
Raleigh smiled brightly, “Yeah right, like I could leave town without seeing that gorgeous face of yours? There’s no way.”  
Jackson scoffed and hugged his Mate tight picking her up off the floor, Raleigh wrapped her legs around his waist and clung to him as if her life depended on it. “I love you Jackson.” Jackson knitted his eyebrows together in an almost pained face. The way Raleigh had said his name, it was so endearing, loved and needful. It made him feel guilty, but he didn’t know why.

“I love you too Raleigh.” Jackson’s voice shook a little but Raleigh showed no signs of hearing it. His chest suddenly filled with sadness as Raleigh pulled back from his shoulder with wet eyes.  
“Jackson, just please say that you’re okay with this. I mean I save people’s lives, I do good things but it’s never going to be fair to you. Because one day the phone calls at eight in the morning aren’t going to be a friend looking to chat. I just need to know that… you’ll always be here when I get back.” Tears started slipping out of Raleigh’s eyes and she pressed her face back into Jackson’s naked shoulder, “Please don’t leave me!”

Jackson’s face hardened to hold back the unmanliness that he was feeling. He cradled the back of Raleigh’s head and whispered over her light sobbing, “Just as long as you always come back to me. I’ll always be here.”  
Raleigh sobbed even harder at that and hugged him tighter. After about a minute Raleigh stopped and sniffed a few times before letting herself down, wiping her eyes, “Just so you know, I hardly ever cry so… this never happened.”  
Jackson smirked, “You’re still a badass Raleigh, don’t worry.”

She laughed turning to pick up the messenger bag and handed it to Jackson, “Just watch the DVDs, my friend Sasha always went crazy with the video camera.” Raleigh bit her lip as she stepped up onto Jackson’s desk and opened the window. She kissed him quickly, “I’ll see you later.” And Raleigh was off, out the window and gone from Jackson’s sight.  
It felt like a punch to the gut and he instinctively sniffed the air that was riddled with his Mate’s scent. Jackson rolled his eyes and sat down at the desk, he already missed Raleigh. Wanted her back immediately. But he just sighed heavily and opened the messenger bag. Inside was a red pillow case that smelled so much of Raleigh it made Jackson’s head dizzy.

There was also a worn oversized Led Zeppelin shirt and a pair of black pajama bottoms. Jackson huffed setting the clothes aside he dug deeper and pulled out numerous DVDs and a few pictures. Jackson’s breath caught in his throat, the pictures were of Raleigh when she was very young. She must have been five or six and she was dressed up in a red cowgirl outfit and boots just smiling up at the camera. There was another where Raleigh was older, probably eleven or twelve with what looked like her parents in front of tiny blue house. 

Jackson smiled, Raleigh didn’t look very happy in that picture. With long brown hair hanging in her eyes and a sassy look on her face. Jackson tried to ignore the faint scent of smoke coming from the pictures.  
Putting a random DVD into his laptop Jackson clicked on the first media tile he saw. The video started playing showing Raleigh when she was about fifteen.  
“Why is she recording this?” Jackson recognized Constant’s voice from the phone call he’d overheard.  
“Because I want proof that my friends don’t believe in me. Plus I want to be able to ridicule you forever.” Raleigh answered cockily.

Jackson saw Raleigh and Constant as well as two other men standing in a grassy field with a table and a sniper rifle on the ground. One of the men stepped forward, “Okay here’s the deal. Raleigh takes three shots, waits until she can’t walk a straight line and that is when she will take one shot from the five hundred yard line. If Raleigh makes it, Constant will do all of Raleigh’s Calculus assignments, if not vice versa.”  
Constant scoffed, “Dude there’s no way you can do this.”  
The woman, Sasha, spoke up behind the camera, “Oh ye of little faith.”

The guy cocked his head at the camera, “That’s very punny Sasha, got anything else in that arsenal of sarcasm?”  
The camera turned toward Raleigh who was laughing over the idle chatter and huffed a breath before knocking back three shot glasses of some kind of alcohol. The video cut and suddenly opened again to Raleigh with Constant and another man beside her attempting to walk a straight line. Jackson saw that Raleigh was laughing too hard to even stand up.  
“You okay?” The man asked.

“No’m tot-ally fine.” She looked to Constant, “Get- get ready to…” Raleigh trailed off drunkenly, “Do my ‘omework or sum’in.”  
As the camera followed the man walk Raleigh carefully over to the sniper rifle Constant shook her head to the camera, “There’s no way she can make this. She’s smashed.”  
“Just watch.” Sasha replied turning back towards Raleigh who was on the ground taking aim, “Don’t listen to them ‘Leigh, you can do it.”  
Raleigh blearily looked up from the ground as she wound her hand around the grip of the rifle, “Wha’m I doing?”

Raleigh’s friends seemed to take a minute to laugh, “Bulls eye sweetie.” Sasha said.  
Raleigh stared for a long few seconds before smiling, “Oh yeah.”  
The second man spoke into a walkie talkie, “Yo, Jack you ready? Over.”

“I am ready and waiting. Good luck Raleigh, over.” Jack’s voice sounded loud and clearly.  
“All right. Out.” The man looked to Raleigh, “Good to go kid.”  
Raleigh leaned into the rifle like it was her friend and Jackson would never admit it but he leaned forward in his seat, anticipation coursing through him.

“I’mma show yous guys to say I can’t do ‘tings.” Raleigh mumbled under her breath.  
Jackson and Raleigh’s friends waited what seemed like forever until Raleigh pulled the trigger, slowly and confidently. But still really drunk. There was silence until the second man spoke up again, “What do you got Jack? Over.”

The sound of Jack laughing heartily came first, “Haha! She did it! Fucking dead center! I told you Constant!”  
Jackson let out a breath that he didn’t know he’d been holding and smiled, yeah that was his Mate.  
Sasha laughed joggling the camera, “Ahh! In yo’ face bitch!”  
Constant narrowed her eyes and put her hands on her hips, “There is no fucking way!”

Sasha turned the camera back to Raleigh who was now sitting up by the sniper rifle, looking dazed and confused. “I knew you could do it!”  
As Sasha pulled Raleigh up onto shaky legs the girl replied, “Oh, that’s good, cuz I really did’n-” Suddenly Raleigh bent over and threw up. Sasha dropped the camera down showing just tall grass but the sound of Raleigh puking while Sasha soothed her was still audible. When the video went off Jackson scoffed and smiled, proud and amazed at his Mate.  
Jackson opened another file and watched as a new window opened, showing an incredible city view from high up at night. The camera turned to a smiling Raleigh who looked much older than she had in the first video, “So miss Raleigh. It is your seventeenth birthday, how do you feel?”

Raleigh smiled brightly, “Kinda the same really.” Jackson saw the breath coming out of Raleigh’s mouth and the shining lights around her lit up her face in a gorgeous way.  
“So you don’t feel older? Or like a grandma or anything?” Sasha asked laughing.  
Raleigh scoffed and rolled her eyes, “You’re one to talk, you’re like five years older than I am.”  
Sasha playfully punched Raleigh, “Hey you better watch it, I’m not ready to be old.”

“You’re not old.” Raleigh answered as the man who didn’t speak from the first video walked up beside Raleigh. “Charlie tell Sasha she’s not old.”  
Charlie laughed, “Oh, God I hope she’s not old. That’ll mean I’m old too!”  
Raleigh rolled her eyes again, “Aren’t these supposed to be your golden years or something?”  
Charlie scoffed with Sasha, “Golden years, yeah right.”

“So are you ready for your present?” Sasha asked cheerily.  
Raleigh pursed her lips for the camera, “Oh, please mummy and daddy! Can I haz my present pwease?”  
Charlie laughed and shrugged his shoulders before pulling an envelope out of his pocket, “This one’s from Faith, she said sorry for not being here.”  
Raleigh tore the bright purple envelope open and gasped, “Oh, my God! Front row tickets to Aerosmith and Robert Plant in Japan? These tickets sold out months ago.”

Sasha giggled, “Yeah, that’s Faith. Buying people’s affection.”  
Raleigh sneered at Sasha and Charlie rolled his shoulders, “In Faith’s defense she works about five times more than we do. She’s also saved the world a few occasions.”  
“Yeah and she’s died twice. Bitch is fucking badass.” Raleigh said pocketing the tickets.

“Whatever.” Sasha quipped back, “I still don’t like her, she’s a shady bitch.”  
“Sasha stop being paranoid and turn the camera off, you know that thing makes me nervous.” Charlie said and Sasha took the hint and the video ended. Jackson watched a few more videos, apparently Raleigh was a very talented singer as well. She sang a lot of different kinds of music from bubble gum pop to hard rock to gentle feel good.

Jackson leaned back in his chair and looked back into the messenger bag, there were at least six or seven other DVDs. He wondered for a split second how long it would take to watch them all but the his phone beeped. Jackson groaned looking at the time, he had about half an hour before he had to be at Derek’s. Jackson closed his laptop and stowed the messenger bag under his bed, just in case. He pulled a shirt on and snuck out of the house quietly. Jackson Whittemore had places to be.


	12. Chapter 12

Jackson clenched his jaw tightly, he didn’t like waiting. He looked around the burnt down remains of Derek’s home to see the rest of the pack, sitting and waiting just like he was. Derek had been gone for over an hour and the pack was starting to get antsy. Mostly Stiles who was fidgeting like crazy.  
“How long is this supposed to take?” Stiles suddenly blurted nervously.  
Allison shrugged her shoulders and spoke up first, “I don’t know but my dad is taking the deal, so nothing should go wrong.”

“Relax Stiles.” Lydia added putting a hand on his shoulder.  
Jackson watched as Stiles leaned forward on his knees and started bouncing his legs. The ADD riddled boy looked up at Jackson with the most worried eyes he’d ever seen, and Jackson had a sinking feeling that Stiles’ eyes were only reflecting his own nervousness. He clenched his jaw again and stared out the window.  
“How about we change the subject that’s on everyone’s mind.” Lydia said in a cheery voice, “The lacrosse charity auction is coming up in a few weeks, Derek’s going to put his money down on you right?” She asked Stiles with a faint smile.

When Stiles didn’t answer Scott laughed, “I completely forgot about that.”  
Allison put her arms around Scott, “Don’t worry, I’ve been saving up for it. Nobody’s buying my boyfriend.”  
Stiles shrugged, “I don’t think Derek is going to buy me in public.”  
Lydia laughed, “Don’t be so sure. I’m positive that if Derek thinks about some little high school girl bidding for a date with you, it will fire him right up.”

“Yeah, if there are any girls brave enough to try.” Scott added with a smile.  
Stiles chuckled lightly, “Yeah I don’t think so, if any gi-”  
Jackson as well as the other werewolves heard the dull roar of Derek’s Camero, “They’re back!” He shouted letting Stiles sprint out the door first. The pack waited anxiously on the porch as Derek pulled up with Damien, Faith and Raleigh pulling up right behind him. 

Jackson was sure that all the teens on the front porch were holding their collective breaths as the four walked up to them.  
“So?” Stiles squeaked nervously.  
Derek smiled brightly in a way only Stiles had probably ever seen before, “Everything is going to fine from here on out.”  
The pack started screaming happily and cheering, Stiles ran into Derek’s open arms, Scott and Allison started kissing, and Lydia pulled Jackson into a short embrace, “You take really good care of her okay?” She said looking back at Raleigh who was staring at the ground beside Faith and Damien.  
Jackson smirked, “Of course.”

Releasing Lydia, Jackson practically jumped down the stairs, grabbing Raleigh and picking her up off the ground reveling in his Mate’s laughter. He pulled her forehead to his and whispered, “You came back.”  
“And you waited.” Raleigh whispered back. Jackson growled lowly and kiss her hard until Faith interrupted.  
“Don’t start pouring the celebratory champagne yet.” Faith said with a smile, “Like I only have the one card up my sleeve.” She turned towards Derek and Stiles, “I couldn’t help but notice that your house, Derek, is a little on the crispy, run-down side.”  
Derek threw Faith an indignant look and the pack stilled.

Faith plucked a business card out of her wallet and held it out to Derek, “Here’s the number to a friend of mine. He’s done good construction for me in the past. He can get you bulletproof glass, reinforce the walls with steel and even a few cells in the basement if the kids ever get rowdy. Just mention my name, he’ll give you a huge discount.”  
Derek’s face turned a somber blankness as he took the card, “Uh, thank you.” He said hesitatingly, “Really.”  
Faith bowed her head appreciatively, “And the Guild encourages you to expand your pack… responsibly.” 

Jackson watched as Faith pulled out two more cards handing them to Lydia and Stiles, “And if you guys ever want to put those smarts of yours’ into good work, call me. Scott and Jackson, I’ve already made a few calls, and there will be scouts coming to see you both play next season.” Faith flashed Allison a smile, “You, little lady, should talk to your father, I believe I heard him say something about changing his stance on your relationship with Scott.”  
While the pack celebrate and congratulated each other Faith walked back to her maroon Jeep and climbed inside. Jackson’s joy was short lived when Raleigh looked up at him and said, “I have to go now.”  
Jackson’s arm around his Mate tightened into a death grip. He didn’t want Raleigh to leave him, not now when he had just gotten her. Raleigh pulled him into a deep kiss, “I love you.” She whimpered out when they finally broke apart.

“I love you.” Jackson repeated stoically, he was not about to cry like a girl in front of his pack. And apparently Raleigh wasn’t either, the way she pulled away from Jackson quickly, like ripping off a band aid and walked to Faith’s car. Raleigh looked like she might burst out into tears at any moment but she was kept a straight face while Faith drove away, taking Jackson’s Mate.  
The werewolves seemed to feel Jackson’s pain and crowded around his back with supportive looks and light brushes. Jackson held his head up when he saw Damien, who had stayed very quiet, walked up to him.  
“It’s never easy loving someone like Raleigh.” He said in a strong voice, “These two weeks are going to be hard on you, especially since your bond with Raleigh is so new. If you need anything or if you just want to talk, I’ll be staying at her apartment. You can come by anytime, Jackson.”

Jackson nodded, muttering a low thanks. Damien smiled giving the pack a once over before disappearing in front of them in a blink of an eye. The pack cried out and jumped back in surprise, the werewolves sniffed the air tentatively all smelling the same unfamiliar scent.  
“How the hell did he do that?” Stiles screamed with a half smile, “That was pretty cool!”  
After a few minutes the pack dissipated, all of them going their separate ways, which for Jackson meant going home. He still hadn’t finished his Chemistry homework and needless to say he didn’t really feel like being around anyone. Jackson just wanted to go home to his room where Raleigh’s scent still hung in the air so he could sulk and brood, in a very manly way, all night. Hell maybe even the full two weeks, who knew?

Walking into his house Jackson sighed wearily. He heard his mother washing dishes and he decided that he was pretty hungry.  
“Hey mom.” Jackson said opening the refrigerator door looking through the drawers for food.  
“Good afternoon, Jackson. How are you?” His mother asked genuinely curious as she pushed him away from the fridge.  
Jackson shrugged his shoulders gruffly. His mother gave a small smile and went to work making Jackson a sandwich, something he remembered her doing only when he was a child. Did he really look that vulnerable?

His mother set the sandwich down on a plate in front of him and poured Jackson a glass of apple juice and sat down across from him. Jackson took two bites of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich before hesitantly asking, “Why… did you adopt me? I mean me, out of anyone else.”  
Jackson’s mother grinned as if she were reliving seeing him for the first time as a baby, “We took one look at you, your eyes were so bright and aware. And you had a little tuft of hair, the cutest little fingers. The first time I picked you up you laughed. You were only a few days old and you laughed.” His mother’s grin grew as she looked at Jackson so lovingly, “After that I couldn’t put you down. And your father was immediately smitten with you, he called you our little miracle.” 

Jackson’s mom reached her hand out, covering his, “We love you so much Jackson, and we wouldn’t do anything differently.”  
Jackson breathed in shakily and gripped his mother’s hand back assuringly, “I, uh.” He started and cleared his throat, “I… love you, mom.”   
Jackson’s mother gasped with widened eyes making Jackson feel like the biggest asshole in the world for having stopped telling his parents every day. Tears rolled down Mrs. Whittemore’s face, “I love you.” He repeated putting his heart into it.

Jackson’s mother stood up and hugged her son by the throat tightly and sobbed. Jackson closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around him mother. Yeah, he was a dick but maybe Raleigh’s influence would change him, maybe make him a better man. Jackson hoped so.

FIFTEEN DAYS LATER

Jackson Whittemore was out of breath when he ran into his bedroom that Monday afternoon. He couldn’t believe it, he had made it fifteen days without Raleigh and now she was on her way home. Raleigh had been in Minnesota at a fenced in werewolf village learning everything she needed to know about werewolves, mainly how to protect them, understand them, and if need be kill them. Jackson tried not to let that last one bother him, but it did make him more comfortable knowing that if Raleigh was attacked by a wolf she could handle herself.  
Over the two weeks Jackson had watched and watched the DVDs that Raleigh had left him. Some had been of Raleigh singing and performing difficult guitar solos, some of her physical and people-killing skills and others had been verbal debates between her friends and Raleigh seemed to always win. It made Jackson proud of his Mate, she was strong, intelligent, and self reliant. 

During the two weeks Faith had allowed little time for Raleigh to place calls but the two had skyped whenever she’d had the time. And Raleigh had always left her side open so that Jackson could get on at anytime. There were some days when Raleigh had walked into her room red faced and exhausted carrying a sixty five pound pack, one day she’d even walked in covered head to toe in mud and leaves. Whatever Faith was putting her through Raleigh didn’t seem to mind, but she seemed just as enthusiastic as Jackson about coming home.  
It had been extremely hard missing Raleigh and Jackson thought that he never would have made it through the weeks without his pack. They had backed him up and gave him company and reassuring words when he needed them. Plus he still had Hawthorne to talk to, even if he couldn’t tell her everything, she helped where she could. And Jackson had even cancelled today’s session with Hawthorne due to Raleigh’s homecoming.

Only Jackson hadn’t heard from Raleigh since last night. And her plane was supposed to be taking off in a few hours. Jackson threw himself into his desk chair and set his cell phone down in front of him. He stared at the phone willing Raleigh to call.  
An hour later Jackson’s efforts paid off and he had never answered his cell so fast before.  
“Raleigh?” Jackson asked jumping up excitedly.

“Hey Jackson.” Raleigh greeted him quietly.  
Jackson raised his eye brow looking out his window, “What’s wrong?”  
Raleigh sighed heavily and somberly, “Faith just got a call from a friend. His two kids were kidnapped a few hours ago.” She paused and spoke again in a broken voice, “Jackson they’re only six years old, and their father is a good man. He just wants his children back.”

Jackson winced and sucked in a breath. He gritted his teeth as his eyes fluttered closed in resignation. Jackson had a pretty good idea where this conversation was headed.  
“Jackson?” Raleigh asked when he refused to answer her.  
Jackson cocked his head to the right, “So I guess this means you won’t be here tonight?”

Raleigh sighed again, knowing how badly Jackson was disappointed, “I am so sorry Jackson. But I love those kids, and if anything happened to them and I wasn’t there I- I just have to do this. I’m sorry.”  
Jackson felt sick, like he could feel all the emotions going through both of their heads. “Raleigh, I love you. But this is your job, you save people.” Jackson refused to let his defeat show in his voice, “I’ll be waiting for you.”  
“And I will be back, I promise Jackson. It’ll only take about a day, two tops.”  
Jackson nodded and gripped his phone tightly, “I love you Raleigh.” He whispered, too put down to even speak up.

“And I love you, Jackson.” Raleigh said over the sounds of airplane engines, “I have to go, I’ll text you when we land!”  
Jackson said good bye and hung up the call setting his cell down on the desk carefully. Raleigh hadn’t even made it back to Beacon Hills before she was leaving again to go somewhere else. His head was spinning with a mixture of anger, sadness, and helplessness. Jackson growled, feeling his claws and canines growing, in a flash of rage he sent in desk lamp flying into the wall that was five feet away. The lamp shattered with a loud bang and Jackson sunk his claws into his swivel chair, half tempted to throw it as well.

He took a few calming breaths and after about ten minutes of that Jackson had calmed down enough to think straight. Despite the fact that his heart was racing too fast. Jackson grabbed his keys and ran out of the house. There was someone he could talk to about this shit storm and it definitely was not his therapist.

***********

During the drive over to Raleigh’s apartment a monsoon of rainfall beat down on Beacon Hills, which wasn’t necessarily uncharacteristic but it was annoying to Jackson.  
Damien had answered the door on the second knock and graciously allowed Jackson in and out of the rain, even thrown a towel at him as Jackson had sat down on the couch.  
“So, I’m guessing you’re here because Raleigh called you about the job.” Damien said in a cool voice.  
Jackson sighed on the couch running his fingers through his short wet hair. “Yeah, she said she’d be gone for two more days.”  
Damien stared at Jackson expectantly for a long time before speaking, “And?”

“And it’s not fair!” Jackson blurted, “She didn’t even make it back here before she just runs off again!”  
“You mean Raleigh didn’t make it back to you, before running off.” Damien replied getting a growl from Jackson, “Look Jackson, Raleigh has a responsibility, she’s seen what people and powerful beings are capable of doing and she can’t turn that knowledge off. It’s not going to be fair, never, but you have to find some kind of solace in the fact that all the time Raleigh isn’t with you she’s saving people’s lives.”   
Jackson ducked his head to the floor feeling guilty for his outburst and his anger.  
“And trust me kid, there’s plenty of us men around the world, who can’t sleep a wink at night because our wives are off getting into trouble and saving the world.”

Jackson sighed and looked up at Damien, “It just, it kinda hurts. That she would choose them over me I guess.”  
Damien smiled sitting down in the love seat a few feet away from Jackson. “Think of it this way. Raleigh is the one who has to make the hard decisions, knowing how it’s going to make you feel. All you have to do is miss her.”  
He shook his head, Jackson suddenly felt like a dick again. He hadn’t the right to be angry because of Raleigh’s decisions but he had sent her on her way with his full support, which made him feel a little better about himself. But not being with Raleigh created a black hole of hurt in his chest and Jackson didn’t really know how to deal with that.  
“So how do you do it?” He asked Damien who laughed warmly.

“I’ve known Faith for almost thirteen years. And all of that time she’s been fighting someone or something. Usually I’m right beside her but when I’m not, I just keep in mind that Faith won’t die without me.”  
Jackson’s face turned confused as he remembered bits and pieces of Raleigh and her friends talking about Faith on the DVDs. “So how many times has Faith died?”  
Damien shot Jackson a dangerous look but answered anyway, “Twice, once when she was fifteen and the last when she was twenty five.”  
He smirked looking at Damien, “But she’s still… alive?”

“There’s a lot more to the world than werewolves and hunters, kid.”  
“Like what?” Jackson asked, obviously fishing.  
A little over an hour later Damien was regaling Jackson with stories of the kind of trouble he used to get into when he was a teenage werewolf, which turned out to be a very, very long time ago. But the sound of Damien’s cell phone ringing cut him short. “Yes?” Damien answered with a tiny flare of annoyance.   
Jackson overheard the man on the other end of the call, “Faith’s… -own over Kansas… heard from… Stewart’s freakin-…”

Damien stood up trying to get a better signal, “Jesse, calm down. You’re breaking up start again.”  
And then Jackson heard something that made his heart stop cold, “Faith’s plane went down over Kansas, I haven’t been able to get her or Raleigh on their cells, no one’s heard from them. And Stewart’s freaking out.”  
“How did the plane go down?” Damien asked calmly.  
“So far we don’t know, I’m flying in to view the wreckage, I’ll be there in about a half hour. But so far only the bodies of the pilots have been found.” Jesse said.

While Damien hung up on Jesse, Jackson fumbled his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed Raleigh’s number… all he got was voicemail. Jackson struggled to breathe. Raleigh always answered her phone, no matter what, it was her job. Jackson stood up on shaky legs, his heart beating too fast against his chest, he felt like puking or screaming.  
Damien held a cautious hand out for him, “Jackson, you need to calm down. They’re probably fine, Faith and Raleigh have been in worse situations before. Jackson?”  
But the teen wolf didn’t hear anything coming from Damien’s mouth. The thought of Raleigh being dead kept flashing in his brain like it was trying to give him a seizure. The spacious apartment suddenly felt too small for Jackson and he sprinted for the door, running down the stairs in the rain towards his Porsche. He never even knew Damien was chasing after him until Jackson pulled out of the parking lot, sliding over the water, and saw him in the rear view mirror.

Raleigh could not be dead… Jackson wouldn’t have anything if she was gone. Raleigh was supposed to come home and hug him and kiss him, she was supposed to make Jackson a better person. They were going to love each other for eternity and maybe have little pups of their own one day. But if Raleigh was dead, Jackson had nothing, no one.  
Tears slipped down Jackson’s face and he tried to hold the sobbing back. He wasn’t even aware that his speedometer was showing that he was going seventy miles an hour. Jackson turned a sharp corner, the heavy rainfall forced his car to spin out of control. He grunted pulling his foot off the gas, desperately trying not to wreck the vehicle finally stopped sideways in the middle of the road where Jackson broke down crying.

But as it turned out he didn’t have very long to cry, a semi sped around the corner clipping the back of Jackson’s Porsche sending it rolling like a toy car. Jackson lost count at how many times he flipped over, the windshield busted sending safety glass flying everywhere. And the sickening sound of metal giving way filled the air.  
When the car finally came to a stop Jackson’s head lolled to the side, panting. Breathing was difficult and painful, He was too disoriented to check himself for injuries, instead he just sat there in his seat, thankful that he hadn’t been thrown out of the car since he had conveniently forgotten to put on his seatbelt. Jackson’s vision was swimming and pain shot all through his body.

Suddenly the door was ripped off of the side of his car and Damien was there pulling him out of the wreckage. The man laid him on the ground, Jackson could overhear someone frantically calling 911. “Can you heal before the paramedics get here?” Damien asked brushing the glass off of Jackson.  
For some reason Damien’s words didn’t make sense to Jackson and he just closed his eyes, his breaths getting shorter and farther in between. He felt Damien shake him, “Jackson you’ve got to heal! Jac- shit!”  
Jackson groaned in pain when he felt Damien pick him up like he weighed nothing. Suddenly Jackson’s head rushed like he was on a roller coaster and bile inched up his throat. The sounds of people yelling got louder and he cracked open his eyes. The lights were blinding and everything was white. 

“I need some help here!” Damien shouted and Jackson recognized Melissa McCall’s voice, “What happened?”  
Jackson was at the hospital, Damien must have used his disappearing act to get him there in an instant. “Car wreck.” Damien answered following Scott’s mother through the halls.  
The voices bled together until everything was just noise and the darkness took over Jackson’s head. Someone started pumping air down his throat but it didn’t stop Jackson from turning back to the only thing that was important to him at that moment. 

Raleigh, his Mate… was dead? Jackson couldn’t remember, his consciousness slipping from him. Something was wrong though, Raleigh was hurt or dead or gone and Jackson was never seeing her again. She’s dead. She’s dead. She’s dead.  
Jackson finally slipped away into unconsciousness, ending his mantra of despair. His last thought was the agonizing realization that if Raleigh was dead, Jackson really wouldn’t want to be alive either.


End file.
